


Losing My Religion

by LaTessitrice



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Echo - Freeform, F/M, The major character is already dead, When there's so little fic for a pairing you have to write it yourself, annnnnnnngst, post Season 1 finale, this is going to hurt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-04-23 01:55:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 32,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19141240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaTessitrice/pseuds/LaTessitrice
Summary: Three days. Slow as molasses, fast as a heartbeat. A blur of motion and decisions, suspended in the amber of her fresh grief. When she’d told Max she had to get used to a new kind of grief, this was never what she meant. How can she be happy over Rosa’s return when it’s caught at the center of her bewilderment, bound to the ice in her heart?Liz isn't going to let Max go that easily.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my first multichapter Echo fic! I am notoriously bad at updating on a regular schedule (or at all) but this is one I like to call my 'hiatus' fic as I want it finished before season two, as it serves as a kind of alternative version of that. Heavily Liz and Echo focused but with brief snatches of the other plot threads going on around Liz.
> 
> My original aim was to have this as a thirteen chapter "season" but I hate outlining that rigidly so we'll see where we end up, eh?
> 
> Thanks to maxortecho and craashdowns for their beta work, and for the girls in the chat who've seeded many ideas for this story, including the big one.
> 
> Now, for your first big dollop of angst...

Liz wakes with a gasp.

Really, it’s part-sob, part-sigh. The dreams she fled from were elemental—fire, wind, lightning, and ice. Now she has a pounding heart and a shuddering breath, and the stillness of the morning around her, but the ice remains, centered above her heart.

The handprint.

It’s still there, emblazoned on her skin, a grotesque reminder of what she’s lost. It doesn’t fade even though the connection has been torn, the other end wrenched away and left untethered, leaving the contents of her uncaged heart to bleed out into nothingness. Three days and she should be bled dry. It feels that way. She’s numb, but it’s a cold numbness, a distinct absence she can’t ignore.

“Max,” she whispers, allowing her eyes to drift open. There is a presence in the bed beside her, a comforting one even if it is so…well,  _ alien _ , after the years of absence. But the warm body to her left is not Max.

Instead Rosa dreams on, undisturbed by Liz’s abrupt awakening.

They’re in Max’s spare room. There was no bed here before, but one was borrowed from somebody’s garage and assembled amidst the bookshelves and piles of gym equipment. It’s cluttered and oddly bare, without the little flourishes found in every other room. Liz would rather be in  _ his _ bed, except it’s weird to sleep in there without him and with Rosa. 

Rosa has always shared a room with Liz. Always. Liz spent a decade adjusting to a quiet room in solitude, whatever city she’d happened to be in, but for Rosa that decade never happened. Liz’s options are abandoning her now-younger older sister to this frightening new reality at night, or giving up the chance to burrow beneath Max’s blankets and pretend he’s there with her.

She chose her sister. It’s no real choice: his scent on the sheets is a hollow illusion, nothing compared to Rosa’s soothing warmth at her side. And when— _ when _ —they bring Max back, these precious moments with Rosa will be the sweeter for it.

Three days. Slow as molasses, fast as a heartbeat. A blur of motion and decisions, suspended in the amber of her fresh grief. When she’d told Max she had to get used to a new kind of grief, this was never what she meant. How can she be happy over Rosa’s return when it’s caught at the center of her bewilderment, bound to the ice in her heart?

“Liz?” 

Rosa’s soft voice still makes her heart turn over in her chest, even thick with sleep like this. It’s the battery to keep her heart going, drained as it is. All those years as only an echo in Liz’s memories, a fragment of her inner voice she was terrified would one day fade into nothing, and now it’s real.

“Rosa,” she murmurs back.

“You awake?”

Liz hums assent. Rosa finds her hand beneath the covers, threads their fingers together. A comforting, familiar gesture which has Liz blinking back tears. Rosa’s so  _ warm _ , her skin firm and smooth, and it’s the little details like this that remind Liz of how grateful she is to have Rosa back. Only the toll, that intolerable cost, gives her any hesitation over the equation, but Max paid it without forcing Liz to choose between them.

“I want waffles,” Rosa announces. “Whipped cream, chocolate sauce, cherries, the works.”

“You’ve seen the contents of the fridge,” Liz replies, but she’s already moving, untangling herself from both the covers and from Rosa. “I can offer you two of those things at best.”

Her hand is cold away from Rosa’s warmth. The warmth only reminds Liz of how rapidly Max had been cooling beneath her palms the last time she touched him.

* * *

It turns out Michael and Isobel are right behind her into the cave, summoned by their own bonds to Max. She’s stopped crying and started CPR, counting chest compressions when they stumble inside.

“No, no, no…” Michael begins a litany as he takes in the situation, while Isobel’s immediate reaction is a broken sob.

“It can’t—tell me it’s not true,” she pleads, but nobody responds to her.

Liz focuses on what’s important: getting Max’s heart started again. “We need a defibrillator,” she says, to nobody in particular. “Somebody call Kyle—I can’t stop to use my phone.”

It’s Rosa, still wrapped up in her blanket, who crouches beside Liz, fumbling for her back pocket. Her movement draws the attention of Michael and Isobel, away from Max and to the newly resurrected girl in the cave with them.

“You,” Michael says in a hoarse whisper as he recognizes Rosa. “What did he  _ do? _ ” His voice crescendos to a yell, and on the last word the ground shudders beneath them.

The pod cracks. 

Rosa jumps, shrinking closer to Liz. Whatever the surface of the pod is made from—that strange, glossy material that’s oddly porous—it has a fissure down it, but its contents don’t seep out.

Liz keeps up the compressions. Max’s head lolls with the tremor but his eyes remain open, gaze unfocused and empty.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Isobel replies to Michael. “He ignored everything we said—”

Liz files the implications of those words away for later. Time is important here: time spent getting Max’s heart started. She’s aware of Rosa grasping her phone, staring at it blankly. “Where are all the buttons?” Rosa whispers.

“Give it to Isobel,” she instructs, but Rosa sinks back onto her haunches and grips the blanket tighter around herself. 

“What’s going on in here?” The voice is new. Maria. 

That causes every head to turn in the direction of the cave entrance, where the owner of that voice has just appeared, bathed in the flickering glow from the candles and the sickly light of the pod.

Everyone freezes, Maria included, her gaze focused on the girl crouched beside Liz. Even Liz has to stop what she’s doing, her arms and back aching.

“Rosa?” Maria asks, tentatively, disbelieving what she’s seeing. She takes it all in, then turns a questioning stare to Michael, who flinches sheepishly.

“You follow me here?”

“You run off on me after I notice your hand is miraculously healed, damn straight I’m following you.” But Maria’s words lack their customary fire, her breath shallow at the sight of Rosa. Her hand is at her throat.

For her part, Rosa gets up and takes hesitant steps towards her friend. “It’s me.”

“I can see that,” Maria replies, nodding, wide eyed and swallowing back whatever emotions are gathering in her throat. “H-how?”

“Max,” Liz says. She’s not looking at him—she doesn’t need those vacant eyes staring beyond her—and when she rests on her trembling hands on his chest to begin compressions again, she’s gently pushed away. Isobel is there, knelt on the other side, reaching out to take over. Her inertia overcome in the face of the urge to do something. Anything.

Liz meets her gaze. Isobel nods, and begins compressions.

“Call Kyle,” Liz repeats.

It’s Maria who takes charge: making the call while Liz and Isobel take it in turns with CPR, trying to explain the story to Rosa and Maria. Michael does not contribute: he stands with his arms folded, brooding in the direction of the broken pod. Kyle arrives, and Liz couldn’t have said how long it took, but he looks as wrecked as they all feel even before he reaches Max’s…

Before he reaches Max.

“He’s cold.”

Liz shakes her head. “We’ve been doing compressions all this time. He just needs a shock, to get his heart started, and—”

“Liz.” Kyle is gentle, but insistent, while Isobel stares at him like he’s not there. “He has no pulse. It’s too late. He’s gone.”

It’s Liz’s turn to start her own litany of denial, even as Michael turns his emotions outwards again, shaking the cave as his shoulders begin to heave.

“No, he’s not,” she insists, her attention fixed on the pod as it begins to splinter into pieces. Rosa and Maria flank her, each wrapping her in their embrace. “We’ll find a way to bring him back.”

* * *

The waffles are finished, dishes piled in the sink. At some point Liz needs to do grocery shopping but that feels like an absurd piece of normality right now. Besides, this isn’t her house—she technically has no right to be here. But Isobel hasn’t protested. She’s here so much, she seems to find their presence comforting. 

Liz can only imagine what going back to the home she used to share with Noah, having lost them both in quick succession, feels like.

“Plans for the day?” Rosa asks her as she runs the kitchen faucet. 

“I need to do a shift at the Crashdown.” It’s not just for money; it’s to maintain their cover, flimsy as their story is. “Meanwhile you still have at least eighteen seasons of Supernatural to catch up on.”

Rosa shrugs. “The Winchester brothers were coming back from the dead before it was cool.” 

Liz feels a momentary chill. Rosa insists she remembers nothing—a dreamless sleep—but Liz has heard that before. Lies told in fiction. She still doesn’t believe in heaven or hell, but the thought of Rosa keeping the truth from her, good or bad, to spare her more pain…she has to remind herself this isn’t a TV show, and Rosa seems unchanged by her time beyond any veil. Isobel didn’t feel time pass in the pod either, and she might not have been dead, but she’s the only one of them who’s experienced that.

Rosa peers at Liz. “You’re going back to the cave, aren’t you?”

Liz shakes off the lingering questions she has. Rosa’s only proven Liz’s belief there’s nothing on the other side—that there is no other side. “Yes.” 

Rosa doesn’t ask what she’s doing there, and for that Liz is grateful. She doesn’t have much of an answer; there’s no science going on, and she hasn’t quite resorted to praying for a miracle yet. Who would she even pray to? “Maria says she’ll come by before the Pony opens. Kyle too when his shift ends.”

“I don’t need babysitting,” Rosa says pointedly.

“We’re not babysitting you. We’re keeping you company in this strange new world.”

Thorny as Rosa seems, Liz knows she’s been enjoying spending time with the new, improved Kyle. She’s loathe to leave Rosa on her own—as far as she’s concerned, it’s only been a few days since she was pushed onto a downward spiral because of Noah’s actions. Since he stole her life.

Sometimes Liz catches sight of Rosa rubbing at her chest. Max’s handprint came through the morning after Rosa’s return, but in a muted form, looking closer to a bruise than the effervescent mark Liz had borne the first time around.

Hers is like Rosa’s this time too.

“I’ll bring dinner home,” she promises as she grabs her jacket from the hook beside Max’s. “Don’t spend all day eating chips.”

“Yes, mom,” Rosa replies flippantly, but her answering stiffness to Liz’s makes it clear she regrets it immediately. It’s one of a mountain of issues that neither of them wants to touch yet, for fear of causing an avalanche they won’t survive. They’re tiptoeing around each other, pretending like everything is fine, but Rosa’s hurting and Liz doesn’t know how to make it right. 

“Text me if you need anything else,” is all Liz responds with, but even still, she can’t resist hugging Rosa on her way out of the door. There were too many days she regretted not hugging Rosa the last time she saw her; she’ll never make that mistake again.

The drive from Max’s house into Roswell is quiet. The road is mostly a dirt track so she passes nobody, only the turn offs towards the turquoise mines. She does not have the radio on, since there’s not a song in the world which could soothe or distract her from the static in her mind.

When she knows that she’s out of sight of the house, she pulls the car over the side of the road, her breathing suddenly coming in halting gasps, her throat tight with the tears she refuses to let spill around anybody else. Crying feels like giving in, like acceptance.

She didn’t cry when Rosa died, her anger sustaining her for years. But she doesn’t have the same burning rage to latch onto this time. There’s no fire, only ice.

She wants to be angry at Max—anger is easier, comforting. Liz knows how to deal with anger, how to turn it into the fuel she needs. But when she reaches inside herself, it’s not there. Even when she tries to coax it out of herself—telling herself that Max should have discussed what he planned to do, and given her the choice, she can’t blame him for sparing her from it. It was an impossible choice to make. She could be angry at him for leaving her but that road only leads back to the emptiness inside where she should be able to feel him.

So she doesn’t have anger to cling to. Instead, the emptiness fills itself with sorrow, pain like a sharpened blade digging in behind her ribs. She sits in the silent car and she weeps, allowing herself these scant moments where nobody is around to witness them. They don’t try to comfort her, and she’s not compelled to comfort anyone else in turn.

When she’s cried herself hollow once more, she wipes her face clean, applying the eye make-up in the rearview mirror she hadn’t bothered with back at the house. Her last touch is a lashing of red lipstick. Her armor in place so she can face the world, whether she wants to or not.

* * *

Liz’s determination has one conclusion: putting Max in his pod, resting in the safety of stasis. Michael helps move Max from one cave to another, reverently carrying him in his arms instead of with his mind, then disappears while their backs are turned. Liz hasn’t seen him in the days since, and Isobel claims he isn’t answering his messages.

Liz doesn’t say goodbye to Max before leaving the cave. She doesn’t believe he can hear her, not from what Isobel has said about her time in the pod, and her throat won’t allow her to produce the word anyway.

Those who remain retreat to Max’s house. A silent group, blanketed in confusion and shock. Maria switches to getting-shit-done mode when she sees the state of the house, calling in favors from her regular maintenance guys to come and fix the broken doors while she scrubs Michael’s blood from the floor. They buy the explanation of storm damage and go on their merry ways with the promise of free drinks for their speed and their silence.

Isobel…Isobel is as good as gone as Michael. She’s a wraith, sitting on Max’s couch in perfect stillness, while Rosa hides out in the spare room, unable to bear the sight of the face her killer had worn.

Maria and Liz retreat to Rosa’s side, quietly talking over all that’s happened. It’s hard to distill a decade into brief sentences, and Liz finds herself constantly touching Rosa: stroking her hair, holding her hand, patting her arm. Just to convince herself she’s real, she’s there.

The Pony won’t run itself, so Maria has to leave, promising to bring clothes for Rosa to wear when the bar closes. Liz winces at the reminder Rosa’s clothes have only just gone to Goodwill—are likely still there now, in that awkward spot between “dated” and “retro”. 

Kyle arrives with food from the Crashdown. There’s a haunted air to him—some deeper secret they need to talk about, but their focus for now has to be Rosa. 

“I guess the menu hasn’t been updated while my life went all ‘Flight of the Navigator’,” Rosa says, drowning her fries in ketchup.

“You know  _ papi _ ,” Liz replies. “He doesn’t change.”

“And mom?”

Such a loaded question. One it takes Liz time to answer. “I haven’t seen her in years,” she confesses. “Not since she came back to town for your funeral.” She doesn’t tell Rosa that she’d left before the day itself. But she meets Kyle’s gaze, and they share a silent moment of agreement. No more secrets. “I know why she left.”

Rosa stiffens, and Liz keeps a soothing hand on her arm.

“I’m not angry.” Truth be told, Liz isn’t sure what she feels about it. She hasn’t had chance since Noah told her. It was less than a day ago, part of the maelstrom of the night she’s packaged away to deal with when she doesn’t have more pressing concerns. That time hasn’t arrived yet. “Kyle knows too.”

“How long?” Rosa asks tentatively.

“A couple of months,” responds Kyle. “Haven’t really had chance to process I’m a big brother now.”

Rosa rolls her eyes. “You are not my big brother. I am older than you— _ both _ of you, before you start getting any ideas.”

“Which one of us is the doctor?” Kyle asks.

“Oh, it’s going to be like that, is it,  _ canijo _ ?”

It’s a better rapport, a better reaction, than Liz could have hoped for. Rosa barely tolerated Kyle the first time around. Hopefully his grown-up persona will be more palatable for her.

“Have you two spoken much about what we’re going to do next? Do you have a cover story planned or—”

“There’s not much we can do,” says Liz, “not without exposing Max and his siblings.”

Rosa’s mouth forms a hard line at that.

“Right,” Kyle agrees. “I think we need to bring a real adult on board, since we’ve made such a mess of things on our own.”

“Huh?”

“My mom. There are things I need to tell her—” the haunted look returns “—and she’s the best placed person to help us figure out what to do next.”

“Are you sure we can trust her?” Liz remembers the sheriff’s insinuation about Rosa the night of her return. How likely is she to protect her husband’s illicit child, the one she’d condemned as a junkie like the rest of the town?

“I’d bet my life on it,” Kyle assures her. There‘s a wry twist to his mouth as he continues, “In fact, I kind of am.”

There’s definitely more to the story, but now isn’t the time to start digging.

“Why are you talking to your mom instead of the sheriff?” Rosa pushes. “He was helping me before.”

Liz and Kyle share another glance. This is another facet of the complicated history of the last ten years that Liz has forgotten to include. Kyle nods. “I’ll give you two some time to talk,” she says, giving Rosa’s hand one last squeeze before leaving the room.

She’s already vaguely aware of Rosa’s distrust of the aliens, and Liz can’t blame her. Even as she’d spun the yarn explaining how Max came to bring Rosa back to life—how Liz had forgiven him for his part in Rosa’s death—she’d found herself stumbling over her excuses, unable to meet Rosa’s eye. Rosa hadn’t responded and Liz had no idea what that meant. She only knows Rosa is uneasy around Isobel, and isn’t that to be expected?

The woman in question is still on Max’s couch, no longer a statue. She’s crying silently into her hands and startles when Liz approaches.

Nobody’s offering her comfort. Two losses in the space of a day, and she’s bearing it alone. That’s enough to get Liz to settle down beside her, offering a tissue if not an actual shoulder to cry on.

“I can’t feel him,” she whispers. “All my life, he’s been there. Even when I didn’t want him to be. And now he’s gone!” Liz has heard this before, from Michael when the serum had worked on Isobel. “It’s like having a chunk of my soul cut out. I-I don’t know how to exist without him.” 

How can Liz claim to know how Isobel felt, even if there is a rift in her chest where he’s been torn away from her? She’s had that feeling for less than an hour—a few days, at most, if she counted the first time Max was linked to her. To lose Rosa, and for it to feel like this?

It had felt like this. In its own way.

“I get it,” Liz says gently.

“No you don’t!” Isobel retorts, in a sudden fit of petulance.

Liz has the urge to brush her fingers over her chest, where the link burns even now. But she stills her hand on its path. Places it over Isobel’s instead.

“I’m the only person in this house who does know,” Liz reminds her. 

Isobel casts a guilty glance in the direction of the spare bedroom. “But we’re going to bring him back, right?” For all of her normal authority, for all of how she looms over Liz when they are stood together, right now she sounds like a child begging her parent for assurance.

“We are. I promise.” 

Liz has no idea where to begin with that vow. The only person in the world who could heal Max is Max himself, and without a lab, she doesn’t have the resources to start trying to unravel how his powers work. Even with a lab it seems impossible, trying to reverse-engineer a miracle. Like an alchemist of old, spinning lead into gold.

Isobel’s downturned mouth suggests she isn’t convinced by the promise. “Can I stay here? I don’t want to go back to my house alone.”

Liz almost asks if there’s anyone else Isobel can turn to, but she knows there isn’t. The secret has isolated her as much as it isolated Max and Michael, and who knows where Michael is at this point.

“It’s not my house,” Liz points out. “It’s not my decision to make.” But she knows if Isobel does decide to stay, she and Rosa will need to move onto somewhere else. Rosa’s comfort is important too.

Isobel’s aware enough to notice Liz’s discomfort. “No, it’s alright. I need to find Michael anyway. Make sure he’s not getting himself thrown into jail without Max to bail him out.” That notion brings a fresh barrage of tears.

Kyle emerges from the bedrooms. “I’m going to go. Find my mom.”

That attracts Isobel’s attention. “You’re telling the sheriff?”

“It’s the best plan we have,” he replies defensively.

“No, you’re right,” she agrees, to the surprise of them both. “But I’m coming with you.” She wipes the tears away from her face with determination.

“You’re not Jedi mind tricking my mom.”

“I don’t intend to. Only—Noah was my husband. Max is—was—my brother. I should be there.”

“Alright.” If Kyle isn’t convinced, he has the grace not to show it. “Can I get a minute with Liz?”

Liz can see Isobel’s walls going back up, the imperious mask she wears to convince the world she isn’t as fragile as she really is being put back into place. “I’ll wait in your car. I’ll be picking the music.”

“How did Rosa take it?” Liz asks Kyle quietly when they’re alone.

“About as well as can be expected.” Kyle shrugs. “I’m not really sure what kind of relationship they had, but I think she felt like she could rely on my dad. He understood what she was going through, and now he’s gone.”

“Makes sense. I’ll check on her when you’re gone.”

“How are you holding up?”

His question is sympathetic. Too sympathetic.

This is the part Liz hates. She doesn’t know how many times she’ll face this question in the coming days: the sympathy, and the knowing looks, and the constant “checking in” despite how much privacy and space she wants. It doesn’t matter if she tells them that, she won’t get it.

“I’m fine.” Kyle frowns in disbelief. “Seriously, I am fine! I meant what I said back in the cave. You go tell your mom everything she needs to know. I’ll get on with what I need to do.”

* * *

Her shift at the Crashdown’s more exhausting than normal. Pretending to be cheerful is draining, even if her papa has a lightness to him she hasn’t seen in years. He knows about Rosa—how could Liz not tell him?—but he doesn’t share Liz’s fresh grief either. Only the concern of everyone else.

“How are you,  _ mija _ ?” he asked at the start and end of her shift, like he doesn’t know her better than that.

All she wants now is peace and…Max. She wants Max.

She at least keeps it together for the drive up to the mines. She’s been back every day since, and she’s aware Isobel’s spent plenty of time here too. She’s not sure where Isobel is sleeping—it may well be in the cave, despite how cold it is at night—but there’s no sign of her when Liz makes her way inside.

There is another visitor.

The low, eerie light makes a kaleidoscope of Michael’s curls. He has his back to her and doesn’t turn even when he must hear her footsteps. His hand is on Max’s pod, and she waits off to one side, wondering if he will acknowledge her. 

The silence stretches on until she’s compelled to break it.

“We haven’t heard from you in a few days,” she says softly. “We’ve been worried.”

His shoulders shift—tensing into anger—but he gives no other sign that he’s heard her.

“Me,” she continues. “Isobel. Maria.”

That seems to break the spell. He gives a derisive snort. “Right.”

“It’s true.” She shuffles until she can see his face, his taut jawline, lit up in the swirl of unearthly shades. There’s a shadow on his neck, the smudgy outline of fingerprints, like somebody’s tried to choke him. But the way the shadow shifts and shimmers, even dully, is more than a bruise. It’s Michael’s own tether to his brother.

She hasn’t looked at Max yet. 

“I need your help,” she urges. “I don’t have a lab anymore or even the space to set one up. Max’s garage is not cutting it. But you’ve got the space. You’ve got the skills. Together we could—”

“Why would I help you?” he cuts in. There’s enough acetone and whiskey mixed into his breath she can smell it from feet away. “This is all your fault.” 

She’s so astonished she doesn’t know how to reply. Instead, she reaches out for him. He flinches and steps away, almost stumbling over his own feet, but then he turns to face her, his features contorted with anger.

“All our lives, we’ve kept this secret. Twenty years without a soul figuring it out. Until you. And now look at what’s happened.”

He points angrily at the pod where Max rests. She doesn’t look, digging her nails into the palms of her hands while she tries to control her own temper.

“For ten years you kept the murder of my sister a secret,” she points out. “You went about your lives while I lived with the idea that she was the one with blood on her hands. You don’t get to pin the blame for this on me. This was Max’s choice.” She ignores how her voice cracks on the last.

“You’ve got your sister back. Isn’t that enough? Meanwhile my brother is in that pod—”

“I want to fix that! And it would be a lot easier if you would help me.”

He only shakes his head.

“Congratulations. The town junkie is alive again and we all get to watch that car crash happen, while you play Doctor Frankenstein once more.”

Liz has seen red plenty of times in her life. This is one of them. She’s not even aware she’s shoving Michael until he’s stumbling backwards. “Don’t you dare talk about Rosa that way! Not after what you did to her—to her memory.”

He’s got his hands up, but there’s no less venom in his voice. “Does any of that even matter now you’ve got more than a memory back?”

“Only thanks to Max. What did you do? Decide to let her rot.” Isobel has confessed as much. “I am done taking your anger over Max’s choices. You’re either going to help me fix it, or get out of my way.”

“Fine.” He’s on the verge of tears, but any sympathy she may have felt for him has evaporated. “This is me, getting out of your way.”

And he’s gone, leaving Liz in the solitude of the cave.

She can’t bear to look at Max—at his pale, blank face within the misty pod—before she leaves herself.

* * *

Sheriff Valenti comes with the dusk, flanked by Kyle and Alex. Her stoic face is paler than usual, drawn and lined by what she’s learned.

“I always suspected something wasn’t right,” she says. “Beyond the normal secrets. Things he’d say when he got drunk—things he said towards the end. I just didn’t want to know.”

But she knows now, and she becomes a true Valenti when she begins the process of covering their tracks with the powers available to her. Noah’s body will be retrieved from the desert and processed as a terrible accident; Doctor Holden coming out of retirement for one last creative autopsy. Max has been sent away on an assignment for another police department—one Sheriff Valenti herself knows little about, so naturally the town rumor mill will presume it is undercover and dangerous. No wonder Isobel is so tense when they see her; no wonder Liz is always half-distracted when she serves up their orders in the Crashdown—the man they love is putting himself in harm’s way.

Rosa’s situation is trickier. They all agree she cannot step back into Roswell looking like the ghost she is. There’s no way to explain how she hasn’t aged a day, and there’s no way of pretending it’s only an uncanny likeness.

“For now, Rosa and I will have to stay here,” Liz decides, gesturing around at the house. “It’s isolated enough. Nobody comes up here except to visit Max, and they’re all on in the secret. Just about.”

“What if I don’t want to stay holed up in this house?” Rosa protests.

Liz grasps her hand again. “It’s not forever. Only until we figure out what to do next.” 

“There are still those who would see you harmed,” Sheriff Valenti points out. “Wyatt Long’s already facing a sentence for murder, and he’s only on house arrest. There’s no telling if he’ll take the risk of a second charge.”

“Maybe if this town knows the truth about what happened, they won’t blame me anymore,” Rosa points out, temper fraying. “The blame can go where it should be.”

“We can’t tell people what happened without them finding out about the aliens,” says Liz.

“So?” Rosa rounds on her sister. “They got you shot, Liz! Why shouldn’t the truth come out?”

“Because it won’t,” Alex cuts in bluntly. “The government won’t let it. If you try to tell the truth, they’ll silence you. Worse, they’ll lock you up and treat you as a science experiment right alongside Isobel and Michael. The girl who was resurrected ten years after her death? Not a miracle. A weapon waiting to happen.”

Rosa blanches at the thought, and Liz realizes with a sick certainty that Alex is right. Jesse Manes cannot be allowed to find out about Rosa.

“You could leave town,” Alex suggests. “A new identity is a piece of cake. Tell me where you want to go, and I can make it happen.”

Rosa shakes her head fiercely. “I’m not leaving Liz.” There’s so much mixed into that statement—so much that anyone who didn’t know Rosa well wouldn’t be able to discern. On its face, it is sisterly concern, the protective stance Rosa has taken all their lives. But underneath, there’s uncertainty. A deep well of fear. 

Of course they can’t throw Rosa ten years into her future and then send her off to a new life far from everything she’s known.

Every head turns to face Liz, questioning without words if she’s willing to put Roswell behind her to start afresh with Rosa.

She should. A few months ago, she was fighting tooth and nail to leave this town as fast as she could, happy to put it in her rearview mirror once more. She could do that now, and take Rosa to a place of sanctuary. Except—

“I have to stay.”

Rosa’s expression is shuttered, and Liz knows she’ll have to dig deep to find the words to justify her choice later. But Max died to give Rosa back to her. She can’t walk away without trying to give him back the gift of life too.

She can’t leave her heart in a cave on the edge of town and drive off into the sunset without it.

“We’ll make it work,” she insists. 

“Then I guess that’s less paperwork for me to deal with,” says the sheriff. “If that’s all—”

Alex raises his hand. “There is the small matter of Kyle putting my dear old dad in a coma with a potent cocktail of restricted medications, which could lose him his medical license.” Kyle winces at Alex’s cold assessment of the situation. “And that’s before the military find out about it.”

“I’ll deal with it,” the sheriff replies. “He’s in Roswell Community Medical, it’s my jurisdiction until they find out—and I’ll make damn sure they don’t.”

“I underestimated him before,” Alex warns her. “There’s more to Project Shepherd than I thought.”

“Understood. Meanwhile, I’m down two deputies.”

“I don’t think Cam has left town yet,” Liz says. “And she already knows about aliens, so—”

The sheriff nods. “I’ll go speak to her.”

“She was protecting Max,” Liz continues, feeling like she somehow owes it to the other woman to argue her side. “Even when it put her sister at risk.” 

“I’ve heard of her sister’s case,” Alex says. “It was a pretty big deal.”

“Is there anything we can do for her? Without your dad’s protection, I’m not sure what’ll happen to her.”

Alex shrugs. “I don’t have the same strings to pull, but I can try.”

When the sheriff leaves, Rosa turns to Kyle, not Liz, her wounded heart turning into a cold shoulder.

Liz does the only thing she can. She clears herself space in the garage, and sets up a lab with the few pieces of equipment she has available.

* * *

She at least remembers to message Rosa before she heads to the Wild Pony instead of back to Max’s. Rosa assures her that Kyle is there with fresh groceries and tacos. At least one of them is managing to be a functioning adult.

Maria takes one look at Liz’s face and yells to Francisco, the new bartender, that she’s taking a break, grabbing the tequila on her way out from behind the bar.

They slide into an isolated booth and Maria pours out the shots.

“I’m not going to ask how things are going, because that’s a ridiculous question to ask.”

Liz tosses the shot back.

“And that answers the question anyway.”

Liz shrugs and upends the empty glass on the table. “That’s all I can have—I’ve gotta drive back to Max’s afterwards.”

Maria places her glass next to Liz’s, staring down while she toys with the rim. The moment stretches on, thickening, until she breaks it. “I can’t believe you kept all this from me.”

Liz reaches across to grasp Maria’s hands in hers. “I can’t believe you aren’t mad at me for that.”

“You’ve got enough to deal with. It’s like kicking you when you’re down. I’ve got better targets for my wrath.”

“Not Isobel. She’s been through plenty too.”

“Fine. Guerin then.” It’s a change from the last conversation they had about him, when Maria was lamenting her confused feelings for him. Now, there’s a steely anger to her words.

“Have you seen him?”

“Once. He came to the bar that night, already wasted. I tried to give him water to sober up, but that just pissed him off more.”

“I don’t think Michael has the healthiest coping strategies.” Her own anger towards him has cooled a little. He’s hurting too, and she knows that—but if he’s not going to work with her, then she doesn’t have the time to comfort or coddle him. 

“You think?” Maria’s smile is wistful. “We shared something, just before…well, you know. We were going to talk it over, but then I noticed his hand was healed, and he ran off.”

“He felt Max.” Her hand hovers over her heart. “He felt him pass.”

Maria nods. “I think he came to me hoping for comfort, but I wasn’t in the mood for it. I’d just found out all this—this stuff about him, about Rosa. And he told me it wasn’t important. Like what he did to her didn’t matter at all. So I threw him out of the bar and I haven’t seen him since.”

Liz ponders mentioning her own encounter, but leaves it. She’s got nothing good to report about Michael’s state of mind.

“Don’t be too harsh,” she says instead. “He’s not only grieving, he’s got this…emptiness where Max should be.”

Maria’s soft gaze turns sharper, penetrating. “You’re not just talking about Guerin.”

There’s a moment where Liz considers brushing it off, but Maria’s forehead is wrinkled with concern and— “No, I’m not.” She glances around to make sure nobody is paying attention before pushing her uniform aside, exposing the skin above her heart to Maria.

Maria blinks at the sight of it. “Max did that?”

“Yes when he—when we slept together. That morning.” She pushes the memory of his warm skin on hers away.

“Oh. Oh, Liz!”

“It’s how I knew something was wrong and I had to go to the cave.”

“Wow. That’s heavy. But it kind of makes sense of this.” She waves a hand near Liz. “Your energy is not what it used to be, and I couldn’t get a handle on it, but that explains it.”

“My energy?”

“You know, your aura. I know you don’t believe in this stuff, but trust me, it’s there, and I’ve noticed the difference the last few days.”

“How?”

Maria pauses, considering how to explain it.

“People always talk about auras having colors, but that’s not really how they work. It’s a shorthand to describe how people’s energy feels, if you’ve got the gift. To me, your energy is green. It’s this wealth of knowledge and your quest to heal the world—logic and curiosity without being too cold. That’s who you are and it shifts darker and lighter, but you’ve always resonated that way to me.”

“That makes sense, I suppose.” Maria’s right, she might not believe in this stuff, but she’s seen more in the last few months than she ever believed possible. If Mimi knew Rosa really did have a destiny ahead of her, what is Maria capable of?

“And Max—” Maria continues, “Max is this rich blue. Knowledge and curiosity of a different kind. A poet’s soul, you know?”

For the first time, Liz understands what Maria means. When she’d been bonded with Max, she’d felt what Maria was able to sense, not in color, but the way Maria described Max’s soul is perfect. “Yeah. He is.”

“Together—I only saw it once or twice, but when you were close enough to blend together, it was beautiful. This bright, shimmering azure. I knew it was special. Now—there are only flashes of it, but Liz—there’s still a little azure there around you. Like he’s not really gone. Like you’re connected to him, somehow. And if he died while you still had this bond, that’s got to be it.”

Liz finds herself nodding enthusiastically. “That’s what I thought, what I hoped. I can’t feel him, but if there’s a link, there has to be a way I can use it to pull it back. I just have to figure out how. So far, I’ve got nothing.”

“Are you telling me you spend all that time in your little lab doing nothing?”

“I try! I’ve got the pieces of the shattered pod. I’ve got Isobel’s cells. But I don’t have the equipment I need, and I don’t know where to even begin. I reached out to Michael, but he’s too deep in his own loss to consider it.”

Maria purses her lips. “You mean he won’t pull his head out of his ass. If I see him, I’ll change his mind.”

“Even if you do, I don’t know what difference it would make. I need a real lab. One with equipment and resources I can’t afford. If I still had my job at the hospital, this wouldn’t be an issue, but short of a government research position I don’t know what I’ll do. Roswell doesn’t exactly have those in ready supply.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. You telling me that—it helps. It gives me faith. And that’s all I have. Faith in Max. I haven’t had faith in such a long time, not in anything or anyone else—but him, I believe in. I’ve seen it. I don’t need to understand it, I just need to trust that I can be what he needs.”

“Everyone in this damned town knows you are all that boy has ever needed.”

Liz squeezes her hands back. “I wish I could stay longer, but I really have to get back. I promised Rosa we’d watch the ending of Lost, and I have to brace myself for her being pissed about it.”

“She’s got a lot of pop culture to catch up on, huh?”

“Oh yeah. I think I’m going to have to sit through the Twilight movies with her.” Liz grimaces at the thought. 

“I can do that! I was the one who made you watch them in the first place.”

“Thanks, but I really need to put the effort into this quality time thing. She seems to be bonding well with Kyle, which is new. Me, on the other hand—I don’t know how to be a big sister! I feel like I’m making the wrong choices. Selfish choices.”

“Rosa did that as a big sister too.”

“Rosa was nineteen. I’m not. Shouldn’t all that life experience be worth something, other than a mountain of student debt?”

“You can’t live your life based on what’s best for Rosa, if it’s not good for you. And she’ll understand that.”

“Will she?”

“Maybe not right away, but she always wanted the best for you.  _ Always _ . She was so proud of what she thought you were going to accomplish, and if achieving resurrection isn’t an accomplishment, what is?”

“One I won’t be able to put on my resume, for a start.”

Maria follows her from the booth and they deviate past the bar to hug goodbye before Liz heads out to her car. The Pony’s busier than it was before, and there’s a scrum around the pool table, a huddle of men Liz doesn’t recognize.

“They’re not locals,” she comments to Maria. “Are you changing your policy?”

“They’re military, not tourists. From the new facility. They’ve been coming in for the last few nights and if they’re going to be regulars I’ll happily take their money.”

“New facility?”

“You know, the one they were building on the Foster ranch. They confiscated the land right around the time you got back into town and I guess they finished building it.”

Liz had been too wrapped up in her quest for the truth to listen to the local gossip at the time. “Do you know what it’s supposed to be for?”

“All I’ve been told is to expect an influx of people into town. It’s an experimental facility so there’ll be engineers, scientists, as well as soldiers and airmen.”

Liz hears the words “experimental facility”, and her mind starts running experiments of its own. “What about biomedical engineers?”

“I guess. Why, what do you have in mind?”

She smiles at Maria. Her first real smile in days. A hopeful smile. “I have a plan.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You did what?”
> 
> Isobel is gripping the arm of the chair hard enough for her fingers to turn white. She’s asking Liz the question with an air of desperation—hoping that what Liz just told her will change if she only wishes hard enough.
> 
> Liz’s news remains the same though. “I got a job in the new facility at the Foster ranch,” she repeats, as gently as she can muster. Knowing exactly why Isobel needs a different answer; why she fears what Liz has to say so much.
> 
> Liz has become the scientist the aliens feared all their lives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all your lovely comments! Here is an extra long chapter two. The characters kept on insisting on having little moments with each other.
> 
> Muchas gracias to maxortecho for beta reading this one as well, and piccolina-mina for helping me out with some New Mexico festive food ideas. Also to witchwolfmouse for inspiring the idea for this entire story, which will make more sense at the very end of the chapter.

“You did _what?_ ”

Isobel is gripping the arm of the chair hard enough for her fingers to turn white. She’s asking Liz the question with an air of desperation—hoping that what Liz just told her will change if she only wishes hard enough.

Liz’s news remains the same though. “I got a job in the new facility at the Foster ranch,” she repeats, as gently as she can muster. Knowing exactly why Isobel needs a different answer; why she fears what Liz has to say so much.

Liz has become the scientist the aliens feared all their lives.

It’s two weeks after her discussion with Maria and she’s put her plan into motion, signing the paperwork this morning. She’s working on a top-secret project which would, ordinarily, be extremely exciting. Nevermind borderline science fiction, what they’re supposedly working on is the stuff of actual science fiction—if Liz believed what they’ve been told about the purpose of the project is true. Which she doesn’t.

“So you’ll be working for the government.” Isobel shifts, folding her arms in a defensive position. “The military. Why would you do that?”

“I needed a lab,” Liz replies. “Now I have one!”

“What are you going to do in that lab, Liz? You cannot take my DNA into that place! What if it falls into the wrong hands?”

“I’m not taking your DNA anywhere,” Liz says soothingly. “I don’t need to. I signed a bunch of NDAs during my induction, and they’re obviously lying to us all, but the samples they’ve given us to work with are clearly alien. All I’ll be doing is my own after-hours experiments on them.”

She knows where the DNA must have come from—Alex has filled her in on what they found at Caulfield. But if Isobel doesn’t ask for details, Liz won’t offer them, not when she’s got enough nightmare fuel as it is.

“There are other risks!” Isobel insists. “We know Jesse Manes was watching Max and Michael—so why would they give _you_ a job?”

“Jesse Manes isn’t running this operation.” Liz knows he’s involved somehow—he has to be, with his links to Caulfield. She also knows he’s on medical leave right now. “I don’t have connections to any of you on paper, and believe me they’ve done the background checks. I’ve got glowing references from my last few positions and a good reason to want this job, given how few research positions there are in small towns like Roswell. I think my air of desperation spoke for itself, quite frankly.”

“I don’t like it,” says Isobel. “And Michael definitely won’t.”

“Michael had his chance to help me,” Liz says firmly. “If we want Max back, this is our best option. Time is ticking on and I was making no progress on my own. Now I have a real chance.”

Isobel’s chin lifts at the mention of Max, her back straightening. “Fine. I trust you to do whatever you need to do. I don’t like it, but—” The rest is best left unsaid. They’re out of options. Liz does this, or they admit defeat. Admit Max is gone.

Neither of them are willing to do that.

“It’ll be worth it,” Liz promises, and for the first time she feels like she might be able to deliver on that promise.

* * *

Rosa isn’t happy with Liz’s decision to apply for the job, but at least Kyle is there when Liz broaches the idea after she returns from the Wild Pony, brimming with the need to act on it immediately.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” he says. Out of all of them, he knows best how badly tangling with the military as a civilian can go.

Jesse Manes is out of his coma. Awake, and recovering, and pissed, from what Kyle says. But Alex passed on footage of Jesse shooting Kyle without warning or reason to Sheriff Valenti, and it’s enough to buy his silence on the subject of who put him in the coma. He’s claiming he has no memory of the attack which left him in hospital—a common refrain in Roswell these days—given the alternative is public disgrace. He may have friends in high places, but it doesn’t take much for a video like that to go viral and he knows those friends will throw him under the bus if they need to.

Alex has already handed out burner phones to use when they contact each other, in case anyone is watching them. He’d been too confident about having his father on the back foot and it had almost cost Kyle his life, so now he’s ultra-cautious. “It’s not paranoia if you know they’re out to get you,” he pointed out when he turned up with the burners.

“If I’m on the inside,” Liz says, “maybe I’ll see or hear something important. I already know more than they realize.”

“Like a mole?” Rosa asks. “That sounds dangerous, Liz. I really, really don’t like that idea.”

“I’m not going to draw attention or go digging for information! The last thing I want is for anyone to figure out what I am really doing there. But I can be a sponge, soaking up whatever I come across.”

Alex has a thoughtful expression. “It could be useful to have someone working in the facility, but you’re in the wrong place in the labs. Whoever’s running this operation—and it’s _not_ my dad, this goes far higher—won’t be careless enough to let anything important slip around you.”

“I get that, but lying to us about what we’re doing only goes so far. Trying to do science blind never ends well. If I ask the right questions, they’re going to give me something.”

“I hope you’re right. Still, at least you’ll be earning those sweet government benefits. Just as I’m saying goodbye to mine.”

Alex has let his enlistment lapse. It’s one way of removing Jesse’s power over him, if he’s no longer obligated to follow the orders of a senior officer. Liz thinks it’s the right idea—he’s already moving like a weight has been lifted, his brow no longer furrowed as often or as deeply.

She shrugs. “All I want is my sweet government paycheck to clear my credit card debt after Christmas.”

And a Christmas miracle, but she’ll never admit that to anyone.

* * *

The evening Michael is waiting in the cave for her, Liz knows Isobel has told him what she’s doing.

“The military, huh?” he opens with, brimming with all the rage he openly carries nowadays. “You haven’t put my family in enough danger?”

_Her_ anger towards him has cooled in the days since she last saw him. She still has no intention of letting him take his temper out on her, but she’s also expecting this response from him.

“I’m not putting you in any danger, Michael.”

“Right. That’s why Isobel is too afraid to sleep in her house on her own.”

That’s got nothing to do with Liz’s new job, but if he’s barely speaking to Isobel he won’t understand. Isobel handles her trauma differently to him and he’s too isolated to figure that out—that Isobel is one more blow from shaking apart entirely, no matter how well she’s masked the cracks inside her. 

Liz takes a different tack this time.

“When was the last time you spoke to Alex?”

He huffs. “Why would I speak to Alex?”

“You went all the way to Caulfield, and you’re not interested in what they found there?”

“I know what they found, because I was there.”

“I’m not talking about your people, Michael. I’m talking about all the research Project Shepherd did. All the data they have on your people, and on your ship. Do you know what they were planning to do with any of that stuff?”

“Doesn’t matter. It’s gone.” He shrugs, mimicking an explosion with his hands.

Liz shakes her head. “It isn’t. Why do you think they built this new facility? It’s Project Shepherd under another name. You wanted answers? We can find them, but only if you work with us.”

“I can find them on my own,” he insists.

“Is that what you’re doing?”

He’s silent.

“You’re not the only one hurting,” she presses on. “Have you thought about what Isobel needs even once while you’ve been burying yourself in self-pity?”

The silence continues, swelling into tension so thick Liz has to turn away, placing a hand on Max’s pod to steady herself. He looks so peaceful inside, now she can bear to look at him in there, and she tries to channel some of that peace herself whenever she needs it.

“She needs you,” Liz continues. “And whether you want to admit it or not, you need somebody too. Come in from the cold, Michael. We want you with us.”

When she turns around, he’s gone again.

* * *

Christmas creeps up on her without her looking for it. She’s barely settled into her new job before the holidays roll around, giving her a few days of leave to help out at the Crashdown, which looks like a Christmas tree has exploded inside it. An alien, Mexican, Christmas tree.

Liz hasn’t looked forward to the holidays for years. She’s spent most of the past decade finding excuses to avoid coming home for them, even when she felt guilty for leaving her father alone with only the ghosts of the past—but then he always refused to leave Roswell to come visit her wherever she was living.

Now, she’s finally spending them in Roswell again, with Rosa and her father. Yet she still can’t get too excited at the idea.

She doesn’t decorate Max’s house. She half-expects for Isobel to insist on it, but she never brings it up, not in a festive mood herself. It’s Rosa who goes digging through his garage looking for the decorations, putting them up while Liz is out, finding the brightest colors she can from the dusty boxes. 

“They’re all disappointingly tasteful,” Rosa says as Liz forces herself to smile at the twinkling lights now adorning the wooden beams. “I’m surprised at him.”

It feels like a home. A home she maybe one day could have shared with him, except—

No. She’s bringing him back. The rest of it is getting ahead of herself anyway.

“I think Isobel will have picked them out,” Liz replies around the knot in her throat.

Rosa’s own smile falters at the name, but she recovers with a deep breath. “Kyle gave me his credit card details to order some gifts with. You can get pretty much anything from Amazon nowadays.”

“I know. Don’t take advantage of Kyle’s generosity.”

Rosa rolls her eyes. “He’s the one who keeps insisting he’s a fancy surgeon now. And he still owes me for the weed I used to get for him.”

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”

“You know what else I found in the garage?”

“Please tell me you didn’t go looking through Max’s stuff.”

“Not on purpose! But I couldn’t find the ornaments without going through boxes, could I?”

“I know you want me to ask what you found, but I’m not going to, because I respect Max’s privacy. Like I respected yours.”

It’s a bare-faced lie, and Rosa’s cocked eyebrow confirms she _knows_ it’s a lie. But she lets it drop, and Liz doesn’t have to hear what dusty corner of Max’s soul her sister found boxed up next to the spare silverware.

They can’t risk a family dinner at the Crashdown, even if it won’t feel like a real family Christmas without one, but the diner is in the heart of town with too many windows, too many possible witnesses to Rosa’s return. Instead they agree to have it at Max’s place, pulling his little table out from the corner into the middle of the living room, scooting chairs of all sizes up to it. What starts as a small family affair balloons: invitations extended to those who’d be otherwise spending the day alone.

_Papi_ cooks, cursing about how poorly stocked Max’s kitchen is in Spanish while the elf ears he’s wearing bob around as he chops and slices. The day features none of the traditions Liz remembers, but despite the missing puzzle piece, it’s the first Christmas she’s enjoyed in a while.

Maria’s the first to arrive with a tub of _bischochitos_ and an elf hat perched on her head at a jaunty angle.

“Well hello stranger!” Maria greets her when Liz opens the door. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“I…kind of live here now?”

“You do? And here I thought you’d moved into your new lab, disappearing into your science again. Forgetting you have friends.”

Liz winces. She didn’t realize she’d gotten so bad, so quickly. “Sorry.”

“Though I appreciate you encouraging your new coworkers to spend all their money at the Pony.”

“It’s how I show you my love,” says Liz, taking the  tub from her and ushering her inside into the warmth. “With other peoples’ money.”

“Even if they do keep asking about a discount for service members.”

“You do the usual?”

“Increase the asking price by fifteen percent then knock ten percent off that? Of course. We’re not a charity.”

Alex brings sweet potato tamales, and Jenna brings a couple of bottles of wine instead. 

“I’m not really a cook,” she says apologetically. 

“You never have to apologize to me for wine,” Liz replies, opening up the red to let it breathe on the kitchen counter.

There is laughter, and memories, and new, burgeoning friendships. Alex and Jenna have an easy rapport—the same blunt manner of speaking, and a casual undercutting of their acts of heroism while enlisted. Tales of bravery are turned into yarns of testerone-fuelled hubris and sheer, dumb luck, culminating in peels of laughter from their audience. Rosa’s presence seems to add an ease to Maria, taking the edge off her jaded mask and letting glimpses of the carefree teenager who used to dwell within creep out.

“These are unusual surroundings,” Arturo says before they begin eating, raising his glass in a toast, “at the end of an unusual year. I didn’t expect to have Rosa back with us, or to be dining in another man’s house without him. Still, at least I have met this one, which is more than can be said for Diego.”

“Who’s Diego?” Rosa ask.

“Diego was your sister’s fiance,” their father answers before Liz can. She’s too busy gaping in horror at the man for selling her out like that.

“You were engaged?” Rosa lights up with the kind of delight Liz knows means she’ll never hear the end of this. “ _Elizabeth_ —you never told me that!”

“I was hoping to keep it that way, too. Thanks, _papi_.”

It’s gone sunset when a new visitor arrives—a sheepish Isobel, haunting the threshold and peering over Liz’s shoulder when she answers the door, to where the conversation and laughter continues. 

“Can I join you?” she asks. Almost timidly. “Please.”

“I—” Liz doesn’t know how to answer. Rosa still shrinks from any mention of Isobel, but Liz has never seen Isobel like this, arms curled around herself, shoulders hunched. She seems so much smaller than normal. She’s even said _please._

“It’s my first Christmas without Max and I just need some company.” Isobel’s lower lip wobbles but she takes a deep breath, bites it, like she’s trying her hardest _not_ to make Liz feel sorry for her.

“I’ll need to ask Rosa.”

“She can stay.” All the conversation has stopped, so Rosa’s hesitant voice is clear.

Isobel looks beyond Liz to where Rosa is hunched at the table, her hands balled into fists. “Really? You mean that?” Her voice cracks.

Rosa takes a beat before she nods firmly. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

“Thank you,” Isobel practically sobs, and Liz mouths the words at Rosa too.

_Papi_ slides another plate from the shelves Max keeps them on. “Have you eaten?”

“I had dinner at my parents’ place.”

“But you didn’t have _posole_ , eh?” He’s already adding some to the plate. “Sit down, we’ll feed you properly.”

Rosa’s quiet for the rest of the meal, sat at the opposite end of the table to Isobel, though she’s not as tense as she was. Isobel is quiet too—still diminished in her spirit—but she smiles to herself as the conversation rattles on, memories of Rosa and holidays past dominating proceedings.

Kyle arrives to exchange gifts with Rosa and Liz slips away with Isobel to visit the cave. The short drive there is silent—in fact, neither of them speak until they’re on the threshold of the cave, breathing white gusts into the frigid air.

“Can you tell Rosa thank you again, when you go back?” Isobel asks quietly. “I know how she must feel—”

“I will,” Liz agrees. “I think it’ll help her, getting to know you as you.”

Isobel shrugs. “Maybe it’ll help me to get to know me.”

The cave is as dark and still as ever, and the shimmering colors Liz once found so intriguing—all the potential wrapped up in the pods—only make her nauseated now. 

“I know it can’t be easy,” she says to Isobel, careful of her footing on the uneven ground. “With everything changing so suddenly. Knowing what you know now.”

“No. It’s not,” Isobel replies bluntly. “I’m alone for the first time in my life, and I don’t like it. But maybe this is what I need. If I can’t be by myself, if I don’t know myself, then I will only ever be a burden.”

“Max didn’t think you were a burden.”

“Maybe not, but I was. I am. I have to take this opportunity to figure out who I am, and what I can do.”

That earns Liz’s curiosity. “What do you mean?”

“Noah said this thing about us having more abilities than we realize. About how we’re not limited to one power.”

“Was he right?”

Isobel nods. “I’ve been practicing. I think—I think I can do what Michael does.”

Liz’s breath catches. “You can?”

“It leaves me sick and weak, because I don’t drink acetone like San Pellegrino, but yeah.”

“What else? Could you—” Liz stops, shakes her head. Looks in the direction of Max’s pod.

“Could I heal like Max?” Isobel says, finishing the question for her. “I don’t know. But I’d like to try.”

“I’d like to observe it. If that’s okay.”

“Will it help you? Or can you help me figure it out?”

“I don’t know, but it has to be worth an attempt.”

When they return to the house, which is lit up like a lantern against the black of the surrounding desert, Isobel heads home. Maria’s lit the firepit outside and is wrapped up in a blanket, gazing up at the stars. Liz joins her. 

“How’s Mimi?” Liz asks, as Maria hands over her hip flask. The whiskey inside is potent and smoky, warming her from within.

“Merry.” For a moment it seems like that’s all she’s going to say. “She doesn’t realize it’s the holidays, which means I didn’t need to get her a gift, which is great because all my money is going on her anyway. But as far as she’s concerned it’s 1997 and those annoying Hanson boys are everywhere.”

“They were everywhere because you loved them.”

Maria arches an eyebrow. “I was clearly a Spice Girls fanatic since I am and always have been about the girl power.”

“You thought Hanson _were_ girls.”

Maria snatches the hip flask back. “Do you have to have such a good memory?”

Liz shrugs. “My brain is—”

“Your superpower, yes. God, I haven’t heard you say that in years.”

“I haven’t said it in a long time. Now I’ve just got to prove it.”

Maria digs around in a pocket until she pulls out a joint, then pauses. “I guess I shouldn’t smoke this here. Not near Rosa—and not on Deputy Evans’ patio.”

“We’ve all got to make adult choices these days.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me.” She stashes the joint back in her pocket. “Rosa seemed quiet today.”

“She’s still adjusting. And I think maybe there being so many people here was a little overwhelming.” Liz shakes her head. “She talks to you and Kyle more than she talk to me.”

“I don’t think she’s honest with him either. Not really.”

“None of us get it, fully, do we? We’re not in recovery, we’ve not been through what she’s been through. What she needs is a thousand hours of therapy.”

“Don’t we all.”

“But I can’t give that to her. I wish I could.”

Maria holds up the flask once more, but Liz waves it away. It’s not fair to go back into the house smelling like alcohol, not when she’s going to be sleeping beside Rosa. Once more Maria’s wearing a shrewd expression, staring through Liz to the core of who she is.  “You’re too alike, you and Rosa. You keep it all bottled up so you don’t burden other people with what you’re feeling. You’ve got to learn it’s not a burden—and so does she.”

It’s easy for Maria to say that, but Liz can’t shake the feeling that Max being able to feel exactly what she felt—all her guilt over Rosa—is what drove him to sacrificing himself. If that’s not a burden, she doesn’t know what is.

“C’mon,” she says instead, “ _papi_ will be ready for a round of _Loteria_ by now, and I need to prove I am still the reigning champion.”

* * *

Liz’s new normal takes longer to get used to than she hoped. Despite Isobel’s concerns, Liz couldn’t have taken her DNA into the facility even if she wanted to—she is scanned and searched every time she enters and leaves, her heart in her throat whenever she drives up to the checkpoint and waits for them to give her the all clear. Something about soldiers at a border—crossing that border at their discretion—has her wanting to spit fire at them, but she bites her tongue and smiles sweetly instead.

It will be worth it. That’s her mantra. It will all be worth it.

Her supervisor, Doctor Vasquez, is a weathered man her father’s age who makes it clear he is only here to count down the months until he can collect his pension. He’s got an impressive resume and their conversations hint at an equally impressive mind, but he is happy to leave Liz to her own devices on the project. Ordinarily this would frustrate her, but here it’s ideal. The team is small, gradually expanding as they recruit bright minds from across the country, but most of her coworkers won’t join them until the new year. 

As far as Liz is concerned this is perfect, giving her plenty of scope to run her own tests with little oversight or curiosity about what she’s doing. If anyone asks, she’s getting familiar with this strange DNA before the real work begins.

Despite all the fancy equipment she’s now got her hands on, she doesn’t make progress as quickly as she hopes. It’s one thing studying alien DNA on a cellular level, but none of it explains how Max was able to heal people, let alone resurrect Rosa. And if Liz doesn’t understand that, she won’t know how to replicate it for herself.

She needs more data.

“Ortecho! How are those simulations coming along?” 

Liz glances up from her microscope to grimace at Collins, the guy who works on the bench next to hers. He started around the same time as her, moving into town from Utah. “I thought I had it, but no, this batch is a fail too.”

“Yeah, same here.” He tosses his set of slides into the autoclave. “Want me to nuke yours as well?”

“No, I think I’m going to try and get my head around whatever is going on…here.” She waves vaguely at the microscope. 

“It’d help if they gave us more to go on, right? I mean, where did these samples even come from?”

“Oh, yeah.” Liz leans in like she’s about to impart a great secret. “I heard these cells came from Chernobyl victims.”

“No way!” Collins glances back at his samples. “I guess that’s as good a source as any. We’re not too far from Los Alamos—who knows what kind of freaky stuff happened in the desert out there?”

“I hadn’t even thought of that!”

She knows Collins will pass her theory along to Vasquez, and then up the food chain. Obliviousness as the perfect cover.

He waits awkwardly at the end of her bench, hands in his pockets. “So we’re all heading out for drinks—you coming?”

“No, I want to follow this train of thought.”

“You know you don’t get paid overtime, Ortecho? Salaried position and all.”

“Oh, I’m all too aware. But I’ve got a hunch I have to follow up on while it’s still niggling at me.”

“Alright. Personally, I’m hoping more tequila will help shake some inspiration loose.”

The peace and quiet when everyone else has left is Liz’s sanctuary. It’s just her and the low hum of the equipment around her, while she studies the alien DNA and tries to figure out what it was that made Max able to heal. She’s not here every evening—that kind of dedication would only raise suspicion—but it doesn’t matter. Every time she thinks she’s making progress, she hits a brick wall.

Of course, so does Project Shepherd, or whoever’s behind this facility. She’s making sure of that. All of her submitted data is a little skewed,  a fraction off. The place is covered in surveillance but she knows that nobody will question her checking on the samples at her coworkers’ stations, or making small adjustments to their equipment. She’s being helpful. She’s being excessively competent.

She’s slowing down progress in ways nobody will ever be able to identify.

But despite all her extra hours, and all the equipment she was desperate to get her hands on, she still finds herself knocking on Isobel’s door after she leaves for the night.

Isobel opens the door in pyjamas, her hair tied loosely back and her face scrubbed of make-up. It’s the most casual Liz has ever seen her, and that includes when she first emerged from the pods. There’s a hint of redness around her eyes, but Liz knows her well enough by now to understand she won’t accept prying questions about her state of mind.

“This isn’t working. I need to know more,” she says as Isobel wordlessly invites her inside.

“More?”

Isobel guides her into the spacious, airy living room.

“I think I need to try and understand the healing process on a bigger scale than at the cellular level,” Liz replies. “That might help me figure out how it works. For instance—Max told me how he learned he could use his powers to harm, but he never explained when or how he realized he could heal people.”

“Oh. That.” Isobel gestures for Liz to sit, and she perches on a bar stool while Isobel sets about making coffee. “It wasn’t people, per se. It was actually a dog we had—Buck, this idiot Collie with more fur than brains. He ran out into the road—” she closes her eyes “—it was a mess. But Max rescued him and managed to fix him before anybody else found out.”

“So Max had a psychic connection to a dog?” Liz asks in amusement.

Isobel shakes her head. “No. There was no handprint that time either. The first time he left a handprint was when he healed Michael. He was so eager to figure out what he could so with this new ability, even though he was so sick afterwards. And then Michael turned up in town, using his learner’s permit to finally leave his foster parents behind. He was a mess.” She shudders at the memory. “His ribs were…well, black and blue, and probably broken. But Max sorted them.”

“And that’s when he left a handprint for the first time?”

“Yeah. They were so weirded out when the bond happened. Michael enrolled at school, and he had a crush on you for a few days until he realized it was all Max’s influence.”

Liz finds herself giggling at the idea of that, and even Isobel breaks into a smile.

“I wish I’d known you all better back then,” Liz says softly. “I know why you kept to yourselves, but I wish Max had reached out to me. You needed friends.”

Isobel turns away, busying herself with preparing the coffee. “Did that answer help?”

“I—no. I guess not. It sounds like it was instinctual. I think I need to hear it from someone who’s actually used the power.”

Isobel glances down at her hands. “I wish I could help, but it wasn’t me.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Liz says soothingly. “But you did say you could remember what it felt like—”

Isobel swallows. “A little. Just a rush of energy, focused through his—my—hands. It felt easy. Natural.”

Liz suppresses a shiver. They’re stood here, casually talking about the memory of Noah murdering Rosa. “Do you think you could channel that. If I—if I got lab rats for you to try it with?”

“We don’t even know I can do that, Liz.”

“Heal, no. But the opposite? I think you can. I only want to try it once, to monitor what happens while you do. That will help me figure out how to reverse it.”

Isobel’s voice is small and broken when she responds. “I don’t want to be a killer. Not even of rats.”

Liz takes a step back, her hands up in surrender. “Okay. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

“But I want to save Max!” Isobel protests, torn between her two needs.

“We’ll find another way.”

“What about me?”

Liz and Isobel yelp and whirl at the new voice, and a slice of silver goes skimming through the air past Liz towards the intruder. The knife stops an inch from Michael’s face, and he reaches up to casually pluck it from the air.

“Nice moves, Iz. You been practicing?”

“How did you get in?” Isobel demands, before shaking her head. “Never mind. Are you sober?” That question is asked with disbelief.

He shrugs. “Give or take.”

“How much did you hear?” Liz asks.

“Something about killing lab rats with our alien powers. You’re kind of disturbing sometimes, you realize that? But if Iz is too squeamish to try it, I’m in.”

“You’ve never felt how to do it,” she points out.

“So Isobel has to get into my head and show me. I figure, between the three of us, we can work this out.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. I’m in.”

* * *

The lab is empty once again, and even Liz doesn’t intend to stay much longer tonight. It’s New Year’s and though she doesn’t have plans, they definitely don’t involve capillary electrophoresis.

She’s on her way out as somebody swings into the lab, keeping the door propped open with his crutch.

“Alex!”

“Thought I’d find you here,” he answers with a grin.

“What are you doing here—I thought your enlistment was over?”

“It is. I’m here as a civilian operative.”

“Really?” she asks. He says it casually, but there’s a line of steel underneath that suggests this was anything but a casual decision.

“You’d be surprised to hear my employment options were pretty limited considering the medical cover I need. Here, the pay’s good—better than I was getting—and I get to keep using my skills.”

“But I thought you wanted out. All the way out.”

He props himself against one of the benches. “There is no all the way out for me. My dad knows I know about Project Shepherd. This way I’m on the inside, just like you. Playing like a good boy.”

“And they don’t know—”

“No, the destruction at Caulfield has been put down to the inmates trying to break loose. Flint makes out like he told his commanders that to protect me, but really it’s to protect himself and my dad—it was too easy for us to get inside and makes them look like idiots. So far everybody here assumes I’m a Manes man through and through, and they’re telling me more than I ought to know.”

“What are you going to do?”

Alex gives a soft, wistful smile. “Protect people.”

“Protect Michael,” Liz replies, equally as softly.

Alex focuses on his crutch. “Guerin is being an ass right now. It doesn’t mean I won’t do whatever I have to do to protect him. Even if I didn’t—if we didn’t have history, I saw too much at Caulfield. Whatever the government is up to, it isn’t right, and I’ll do whatever it takes to undermine that. I’ve got too much innocent blood on my hands already.”

“If it helps, Michael is being a little bit less of an ass.”

“Has he apologized to Rosa?”

“Has he ever apologized, ever, in his life?”

“Fair point.”

She knows Alex wouldn’t welcome her pity, but she can’t fully squelch it down. He’s far more entangled than she is—she could still drop everything, take Rosa, and run far away. He’s right: he’ll never be far enough away to be out of the reach of Project Shepherd and his father.

“I was on my way out,” she tells him. “Do you want to come to Max’s, watch the fireworks over town?”

“I’ve got nothing better to do.” He pauses. “How is Rosa?”

Liz sighs. “Rosa is Rosa. Apparently resurrection doesn’t fix being a smart ass.”

“Who knew? But it’s got to be weird—we’re all completely different people now, down to a cellular level, and she’s still exactly who she was.”

Something about his words chimes in her brain, and she freezes, hands idling in mid-air while she lets the cogs whirl in her head.

Alex notices the shift, eyeing her warily. “What’s wrong?

Inspiration comes faster than she can process into a solid idea. “That’s it!”

He raises an eyebrow at her. “What is?”

“’On a cellular level’—I’ve been looking at this all wrong. I’ve been studying alien DNA, when really what I should be looking at is human DNA. _Rosa’s_ DNA.”

“What?”

“I need to focus on the DNA of someone who’s been healed.”

* * *

Like Liz’s handprint, Rosa’s never faded. Not the way they had the first time they each received one, another side effect of Max’s…situation.

They gather on the patio to watch the fireworks, then Alex sets off to make the long drive to his cabin, declining the offer of the couch. Instead, she and Rosa are left to watch the last remnants of the rockets cascading into sparks through the sky, huddled together underneath a blanket.

“Happy new year,” Liz says when there’s nothing left but the smell of gunpowder and smoke. She braces herself for her next, awkward question. “I need to ask you something.”

Rosa shifts towards her. “No, you should absolutely not get bangs.”

“It’s not that—though I _did_ get bangs in 2010. Before you ask, there are no photos, it was a terrible mistake, I will never repeat it.” She hesitates before continuing. “No, I needed to ask you if I could have some of your DNA.”

“My what?” Rosa’s face shutters, and she shifts away from Liz. “This is about Max, isn’t it? Of course.”

“Rosa,” Liz pleads, “I am so close to understanding how his healing worked, but I need to study its effect on you. I need to know if what he did changed you at all—”

“Nothing’s changed about me, Elizabeth. Nothing.” There’s more than a little bitterness there. “Trust me. Max did not cure me of my many flaws and weaknesses.”

“That’s not what I’m trying to find out! I don’t care if you’re—you’re—” She fumbles for how to finish the thought, casting aside all the labels she’d thrown Rosa’s way during her years of anger.

“A junkie?”

“ _No._ You’re alive,” Liz insists. “That’s all that matters to me.”

“Are you sure?” Rosa takes a deep breath. “It doesn’t feel that way—you’re different now. You don’t confide in me anymore. You used to tell me everything but now you’ve got this shell around you.”

“My armor. You were right, Rosa—I needed it.”

“It wasn’t supposed to keep _me_ out!”

“I’m not trying to keep you out, I promise.” It’s hard to talk around the knot in her throat, even harder when she doesn’t know which words to use to make this right. “The armor helped for a long, long time. I’m out of practice of letting people in—Max was helping with that, but…” She sighs. “I know you hate him, and I’m sorry, I wish I could let him go, I wish I could choose between you but I can’t. Please don’t make me.”

Somehow she’s in Rosa’s arms, tucked into the nook of her shoulder.

“I don’t hate him,” Rosa whispers. “You know I said I found something in the garage?”

“Remember when I told you I didn’t want to know?” 

“It’s good, I swear!”

“No, ssssh.” Liz covers her ears, but Rosa’s prying them away.

“You need to hear this. It matters, okay, I need to explain something. I found all these journals—boxes full of them.”

“Oh my god, tell me you did _not_ read Max’s diary—”

“I didn’t know what they were! I only flipped through to figure that out. And some weren’t journals like that, they were…stories, and poetry. About you.”

Liz’s heart is beating fast enough to escape her rib cage. She needs Rosa both to stop, and to carry on—she was never meant to hear Max’s words unless he gifted them to her, and yet if they are all she has left, what harm is there in it?

“He didn’t even name you anywhere,” Rosa continues, “but I knew they were all about you. You have to understand that a few weeks ago, I thought he was just a stupid boy with a stupid crush on you. When I tried to push you apart, I had no idea how he felt. But I’ve read his words now, Liz. He loves you, and it’s deep, and it always has been.”

“I know,” Liz replies, her voice raspy. “I’ve felt it.”

“I’m trying to tell you that I understand. If I knew somebody felt that way about me, I’m not sure I could walk away either.” She takes Liz’s hands between hers. “I’m just not sure I’m ready to be replaced as the person you love the most.”

“Rosa! It’s not like that at all.”

“I know that logically, I do! But it’s one more new thing I’ve got to get used to, and that’s a lot harder than learning to use an iPhone.”

Liz cups Rosa’s face in her hands. They’re both crying, Rosa’s tears wet underneath Liz’s fingertips, Liz sniffling hers back. “Listen. I love you. I missed you every day you were gone, even when I was angry at you. But I can’t give up on Max. That doesn’t mean I’ll give up on you either.”

Rosa nods, leaning into Liz’s touch.

“Promise me one thing?” Liz asks.

“Anything.”

“Never tell Max you found his journals. I think he’d die of embarrassment, and I’m doing everything I can to bring him back.”

* * *

To Isobel’s horror, Liz wasn’t kidding about the lab rats.

“You are _not_ bringing those things into my house,” she says, recoiling from the cage in Liz’s trunk.

“Awww, they’re cute,” says Michael. “And more intelligent than most of the life in Roswell.”

“Don’t get too attached,” Liz warns him. “Isobel, it’s here or at Max’s, and Rosa will only try to set the rats free.”

It takes a few more minutes of bickering, but soon she has her equipment set up inside Isobel’s living room, where Isobel herself lurks in one of the corners, unwilling to come too close to the rats’ cage on her coffee table. Then Liz has to spend the best part of half an hour answering Michael’s questions about the equipment, because he’s not seen some of her machines up close.

“Michael, you can nerd out over this stuff later,” Isobel finally cuts in. “I want to get this over with and get the furry little disease vectors out of my living room.”

Liz has the pair of them hooked up to monitor electrostatic discharge, and tiny pads stuck onto the rats too. This time she’s taken extra precautions when it comes to earthing her equipment, but if neither of them are used to manipulating electricity like Max, she thinks it’s safe anyway. 

“Okay, I’ll hold little Splinter here,” Michael instructs, “while you get into my mind Izzy, and show me how it’s done.”

“You named it?” Liz and Isobel ask in unison.

“Of course! This one’s Splinter and that’s Ratigan in the cage.”

Liz shakes her head. “Also known as Test Subjects A and B.”

Isobel reluctantly grips Michael’s free hand while he makes kissy faces at the rat, and they both close their eyes. From Liz’s point of view nothing much is happening, but the readings on her monitor do start to creep up—and then Michael’s hand begins to glow around Splinter.

There’s no discernible sign beyond that, but the rat goes limp in his hand, and Isobel release his other hand, propelling herself away from him.

“I felt that,” she says, rattled. “I felt it die.” She covers her face with her hands.

“Yeah, its heart has stopped,” Liz confirms. “But I need to dissect it and inspect its DNA to really understand what just happened. Then I can compare it to some of Rosa’s cells from the handprint mark and see if there’s any kind of connection.”

“You’re going to dissect it?” Isobel asks in horror. “No—Michael, bring it back!”

Michael’s staring down at the dead rat with wild eyes. “I don’t know if I can do that, Iz. But I definitely got a tiny buzz from doing that.” He drops Splinter onto the coffee table and starts pacing. “I felt its life-force.”

“Which matches what Noah said,” says Liz. “And supports my hypothesis that there’s an energy exchange involved in the process.”

“It’s better than acetone,” he replies. He stops pacing, sobering. “I don’t think I want to do that again.”

“Let’s see what these results yield first.”

But another couple of weeks pass and the only progress Liz makes is the realization that the cells she takes from Rosa’s handprint have mutated to match alien DNA. Max left a trace of himself in her when he healed her.

She and Michael have agreed that both healing and killing is an energy transfer—a give and take—but Michael can’t resurrect so much as a frog. He only ends up electrocuting them when he tries, pouring so much energy into them Liz is glad they’re already dead.

“This is why Max was special,” he says. “If Noah could have brought Rosa back he would have, but only Max can heal. We’re just not meant to do it.”

“I’m not giving up,” Liz insists. “We will find a way.”

The way comes in the form of a big January storm. She hasn’t checked the weather forecast ahead of time, knowing she’s spending the whole day in her climate-controlled lab anyway, but when she heads for her car she can feel the static in the air, her body telling her to seek cover in the wide-open expanse of the desert.

She doesn’t drive home. Instead she goes to Isobel, calling Michael on the way there.

“We need to go to the cave tonight,” she says when Isobel has let her inside, beginning to dismantle her equipment. 

“Why?” Isobel asks.

“I’ve spent too long thinking and overthinking it, and I’m not getting anywhere.” She glances up as the first rumble of thunder sounds in the distance. “Sometimes, you just have to take a leap of faith.”

Michael’s at the cave with the stuff she asked him to bring. “Dare I asked why you wanted me to bring something I could fashion into a lightning rod _and_ all the silver I could get my hands on?”

“Do you need to ask?”

“Not really.” He peers at the sky, where the stars are shrouded by heavy stormclouds but lightning has not yet made an appearance. “I was kidding when I called you Frankenstein—you know that, right? It wasn’t something you needed to live up to.”

“It was my favorite book in school,” Liz tells him, shoving a pile of cables into his arms. “We need to get the pod out here.”

They’re both sweating by the time Liz has got it all set up as she wants it—Isobel mostly supervises from the sidelines, unsure what they’re trying to achieve.

The lightning rod is set at a safe distance from them, but feeds to the pod through a long cable, and the pod itself has been skewered with several silver rods which penetrate it but don’t directly touch Max inside.

The plan is, simply, to feed enough electricity to the pod to jump-start Max. She trusts the pod will protect him from being fried like the frogs or the rats; what she can’t do is control it like Max.

When the storm rolls over them, the sky splitting apart in waves of light and sound, they retreat to safety inside the cave entrance, hands joined, hoping for the lightning to strike where they need it to.

“This is it?” Michael says. “All that research and this is your big plan?”

“Have a little faith,” Isobel tells him before Liz can reply. “I do.”

They don’t have to wait long. All the hairs on Liz’s body stand on end the moment before lightning hits the makeshift rod, and Liz can taste hot metal in the back of her throat, even as she shields her eyes from the blast. The pod glows brighter than normal, but it’s impossible to tell from this angle if anything is actually happening.

She rests her hand on her chest, where the skin is still cold to the touch. Nothing. Not a flicker.

“It’s not working,” she murmurs.

“It’s not,” Isobel agrees. “How do you—” she turns to ask, but the question is cut off in a gasp at seeing the handprint for the first time.

Liz is already coating her hands and forearms in the silver mixture they’ve melted down.

“What are you doing?” Michael asks.

“He needs someone to guide him back,” Liz says. “A connection to _here_.”

Because Max didn’t just leave some of himself in Rosa when he healed her—he did the same to Liz. His DNA is in her mark, the other half of the broken psychic bond.

“You can’t go out there!” Michael yells, but Liz is already beyond him, out into the rain.

“Liz!” Isobel screams, but she keeps moving.

“Stay inside,” she instructs them over her shoulder. “I need you to separate us if this goes wrong.”

The lightning has passed, but it will strike again.

She’s never actually reached inside a pod before, and it doesn’t feel like she expects: like the thick, heavy air of swampland rather than a viscous fluid, and pleasantly cool, even if the air around her is charged and reeks of solder. She places one hand on Max’s chest, above his heart, and pulls his own hand to mirror her pose.

Her skin reacts in the seconds before the next strike, nerves screaming at her to run and find cover. Liz screws her eyes shut, her last sight being the ghostly vision of Max’s face inside the pod.

There’s heat. So much heat—like when Noah was leaving his mark, but this time the pain is everywhere, and she’s aware she’s screaming. She holds on because there’s a flicker; something, hesitant and shy, sparking to life in her chest.

She grabs onto it, pressing Max’s hand to her skin with the last of her strength.

The heat passes and she’s tumbling to the ground, but something comes with her—at first she thinks it’s the pod, rolling to crush her, but the heavy weight on top of her is warm and familiar. Flesh and bones. She blinks her eyes open to see the pod splintering into pieces, silver and cables disintegrating into the desert floor.

Max is in her arms. Eyes still closed, but breathing and shifting into consciousness.

For the first time in weeks, when she takes a breath, it doesn’t hurt. It’s not a painful reminder of the missing half of her heart.

“Max!” Isobel comes running from the cave, screaming for her brother.

His eyes open and there’s a flicker of confusion as he stares down at Liz. She smiles encouragingly, but his face is already blurring with the onslaught of tears. Happy tears.

“Rosa!” He jerks upright, glancing around.

“She’s not here,” Liz says gently, smoothing the hair out of his face. “She’s at home.”

“But she’s alive?” His gaze is unfocused and dazed, and he squints at Liz.

“Yes. She’s alive.”

“Good,” he says, nodding. “That’s good.”

Isobel comes forward with a bottle of acetone and he takes it from her greedily, though he fumbles to bring it to his mouth. Liz grips his shoulder to help him, but he flinches from her touch, leaning into Isobel on the other side instead.

It’s nothing. He’s still unsettled.

When the acetone is empty, the color returns to his cheeks, and he seems eager to be up and moving.

“What happened?” He stares at the desert around them. As if it knows its job is done, the storm has moved on, leaving them only with the fat, heavy raindrops. “Did I pass out? What happened to the pod?”

Isobel shakes her head, biting her lip to prevent a fresh spill of tears.

“You died, Max,” Michael says bluntly. “You’ve been dead for six weeks.”

“No. That’s not—” He looks to Liz for confirmation, and she nods. 

“We brought you back,” she tells him, running a hand down his arm. He frowns slightly, but doesn’t pull away from her. “We’ve got so much to tell you.”

“But first, let’s get you into some clothes,” Michael suggests, his eyes averted from his very naked brother. “And maybe we could all get out of the rain?”

Max is draped in a blanket for the journey home. Michael retrieves it from Isobel’s car and hands it over, patting Max’s shoulder when he passes by. His hand lingers, and Liz notices the glimmer in his eyes—the tears he’s blinking away behind Max’s back.

Michael drives so Liz and Isobel can flank Max in the back seat—they’ll all go back for their respective vehicles in the morning. 

By the time they pull up, Rosa’s at the door, peering at them from the shelter of the outside canopy.

“Liz, where were you? I’ve been—” 

The words die in her throat at the sight of Max.

“We did it, Rosa!” Liz tells her jubilantly.

If Max is confused by finding Rosa on his threshold, it’s nothing compared to the little traces of her in the living room, something Liz notices as soon as they enter. It’s clear someone’s been living here.

“I thought you said I was gone for six weeks,” he asks, glancing around.

“You were. Rosa and I kind of…moved in,” Liz explains.

“Moved in,” he echoes. He shares a look with Isobel, but Liz can’t fathom what it means. 

“We needed somewhere for Rosa to stay.”

He’s nodding distractedly. “I’m going to grab some clothes.” As he walks away, Liz is left with the feeling that he’s having a silent conversation with Isobel. In fact, she trails him into the bedroom.

It’s then Liz realizes that she can’t feel him.

The cold has gone, that awful sick sensation when the bond was broken. But though he’s back—the bond _brought_ him back—there’s no sense of connection there. She doesn’t know what he’s feeling; his emotions are shielded from her. She shouldn’t miss the link—it’s the way she’s gone through most of her life—but the handprint is still there on her skin, yet there’s nothing but her own churning feelings.

It doesn’t matter. She can live without him beneath her bones and inside her veins for now, just to see him walking around and knowing he’s here, he’s alive, he’s okay.

Michael stares at the floor. “You got my blood out of the tiles. That’s good.”

“That was yours?” Rosa asks, arms folded. “You owe Maria for cleaning it up.”

He grimaces. “I owe Maria a lot of things.” His neck is slowly turning the colors of the rainbow, Max’s handprint reactivating. He keeps glancing furtively at Liz. “Listen, I’m going to go get a manly hug now he’s dressed, and then leave you all to it.”

By the time Max returns to the living room, they’re alone. Michael did as he said, Rosa has retreated to the spare room, Isobel has left too, and it’s just the two of them.

His hair’s damp and tousled and he’s only wearing an undershirt and sweatpants, but Liz’s heart still turns over at the sight of him. She can’t help it—she tumbles across the room, throwing her arms around his neck, pressing kisses where she can reach.

“I love you!” It’s such a weight off of her chest, the words she’s carried around with her for months, denying them until it was too late. “I love you, and I regret never telling you before, and I’ll never hesitate in saying it again.”

Whatever response she expects from Max, it’s not the sad twist to his mouth. Something like pity flaring in his eyes. “I know. I felt it before I healed Rosa. You don’t need to say it. You shouldn’t.”

This is all wrong. He’s being extremely gentle with her—the kind of gentle that only precludes bad news. His hands are curled around her forearms, and he ducks his head rather than keep returning her gaze.

“I—I don’t understand.” Her stomach is in knots, churning in anticipation of the blow she knows is about to fall, even if she’s not sure what the blow is going to be.

He takes a deep breath. “Things are different now. With me. I can’t respond how you want me to.”

“Max, what are you saying?”

“I’m sorry, Liz. I don’t love you anymore.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm just going to...go hide somewhere.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m sorry.”
> 
> The words are automatic, tumbling out as Liz’s face crumples before him, but that doesn’t mean Max doesn’t mean them. He means them completely. He’s sorry for telling her he doesn’t love her, and he’s sorry for it being the truth.
> 
> And it is. A new truth. A strange truth. One that, much like finding out he’s just been dead for six weeks, has tilted his entire world on its axis and changed everything, but it remains the truth. There’s a yawning space inside him, like the cavity of a freshly extracted tooth, and he knows what should be there but it’s gone. Only the edges remain and even they feel like they’re closing up, healing as he gets used to this new reality.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't replied to any comments on the last chapter, but I have been to two new countries since and written another beast of a chapter. I'll get round to it, I swear. But I might write another chapter first.

“I’m sorry.”

The words are automatic, tumbling out as Liz’s face crumples before him, but that doesn’t mean Max doesn’t mean them. He means them completely. He’s sorry for telling her he doesn’t love her, and he’s sorry for it being the truth.

And it is. A new truth. A strange truth. One that, much like finding out he’s just been dead for six weeks, has tilted his entire world on its axis and changed everything, but it remains the truth. There’s a yawning space inside him, like the cavity of a freshly extracted tooth, and he knows what should be there but it’s gone. Only the edges remain and even they feel like they’re closing up, healing as he gets used to this new reality.

He’s extricated himself from her, the urge to put space between them inescapable. Letting her touch him carries too much weight. When he waited all those years for her kisses, he doesn’t deserve them now. Somebody who can reciprocate does. Plus, it’s too familiar, for what feels like having a stranger in his arms. Every time she’s touched him it’s made him jumpy.

“How does that even work?” Liz whispers, her voice turning raspier with the threat of oncoming tears. “You don’t just  _ stop _ —”

She has to stop, to gather herself. She stares up at him with those big doe eyes, and even with his new state of disconnect, he can recognize that she’s extraordinarily pretty. Stunning, even with dark circles from six weeks of grief staining under her eyes. But it’s like seeing a stranger across a bar and acknowledging that fact. Her face—sweet as it is—doesn’t cause a surge of emotion inside him like it once did.

“Do you not remember?” she asks, a little desperate. “We can use the serum to trigger memories!”

“I do,” he assures her. “I remember everything. But I don’t feel it anymore.”

It’s not reassuring, he can see that in the way she blinks furiously to control her tears when he yanks away the straws she’s clutching at, the way she flounders for a new idea. He doesn’t know how better to explain it than that: his memories remain, but the feelings attached to them don’t. Like a photograph left to fade in the sun, until the colors are bleached away and barely there. He knows Liz, but there’s no more fondness attached to her than the cashier at the grocery store. 

He doesn’t tell her that. He’s not cruel.

“How?” she repeats, as if he knows anymore than she does what’s gone wrong. Because Max knows something has gone wrong—he devoted years of his life to this woman. He grieved her when she walked away from him, and refused to move on for a decade. Except he remembers the years of sorrow, and that feeling and all his guilt over Rosa is still there inside him, a bruise he doesn’t want to press on. Why would his connection to her vanish but nothing else?

“I don’t know.” He’s trying to be gentle, because the situation must be awful for her. “It must be something to do with how I died, or how you brought me back.”

She nods and pushes her hair out of her face, getting this glint in her eye. He recognizes that look—the spark of inspiration—and that shiver of disconnect sneaks down his spine again. How can he know someone so well and not feel anything?

“Now’s not the time to be trying to figure it out,” he continues, before she can follow that spark. “You should rest.”

But she’s shaking her head. “I can’t. I can’t.” And this seems to spur her into action, stumbling over to the table beside the door to grab her purse. She’s casting around for scattered items—jacket, keys, charger. “I live here now. I know you didn’t agree to it, but it seemed like the best idea and—shit, I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to go.”

“I do.” The way she paces away from him reminds him of a caged animal, wary of him coming any closer and ready to gnaw its own limb off to get away from him. Liz has never been afraid of him, and she isn’t afraid now, but she needs to get away from him. He can feel it, but that doesn’t stop common sense making a play.

“Stay,” he urges. “Please. It’s the middle of the night. It’s a bad time to start making decisions.”

“I’m not deciding anything,” she tells him, but that doesn’t stop her shoving things into her bag. “I just can’t be here right now. I’ll be back for Rosa in the morning.”

“Liz—”

“Please don’t.” She backs away from him, hands raised to ward him away and he stands with his own hands up to show he’s not a threat.

They’ve been here before. It’s the middle of the night and so much has passed between them, but they’ve been here before. This time, Isobel doesn’t arrive with drive-thru coffee and a sour attitude. Instead, Liz flees out into the night.

He lets her go.

* * *

Liz doesn’t know where she intends to head when she throws herself into the driver’s seat of her car. She starts the engine, fumbling, accelerating down the dirt road faster than she needs to. She  _ has _ to put space between them. 

Max’s house quickly disappears from her rearview mirror, and then she’s alone in the vast, black expanse of the desert. As alone as she’d been when she’d been making the journey on a dark desert road back in June, on her return to Roswell. Only this time, the person she’s fleeing from is the one who’s let her down gently.

It’s a first.

Is this what they felt? Leo, Lorenzo…Diego? When she’d walked out of their lives had they experienced this shock and awe, or had they known it was coming? At least she’d always made it a clean break, skipping town as soon as the deed was done so they never had to face her again. Liz knows she’s running away now but tomorrow she’ll have to go back, even if it’s just to pack her things up, to collect Rosa and make new plans.

Is this karma? Is that what it is? The universe holding a mirror up to her soul and letting all the wounds she’d inflicted reflect back on her in one swift act?

She’s not even sure if she deserves it.

The skin on her chest feels as cold as it ever did while he was dead. She doesn’t need to look at her handprint to see that it hasn’t done what Michael’s did, and bloom into a full mark, psychic bond and all. It will still be that half-formed bruise she’s borne for six weeks, and now she doesn’t even know if it will fade like it ought to, or stay there. Her lost love branded above her heart.

His attempt at an explanation echoes through her head. “ _ It must be something to do with how I died, or how you brought me back.” _

It’s how she brought him back that did it. Of that, she’s sure, as sure as she’d been when she’d used the remnant of the bond between them to drag him back to life. This was the price for what she’d done.

Until she reaches her destination, she thought she was going home. Back to the safety of the Crashdown, to cry in  _ papi _ ’s arms. But instead she finds herself pulling into the parking lot of the Pony, despite it being after hours. 

The Crashdown has its own memories of Max. The Pony doesn’t.

She knocks on the side door and waits for Maria to let her in, texting her whereabouts to a concerned Rosa. A rattle of chains and keys later, and Maria’s opening the door.

“I was finishing clear up,” Maria says, ushering her inside. “You need a drink, or something stronger?”

“I can help,” Liz responds as she slips by.

“Liz—what is  _ wrong _ with your aura?”

She bites her lip and wills the tears away, treading her own path to the tequila behind the bar. “That bad, huh?” 

“I’ve never felt anything like it. It’s like there are gaps in it—I don’t—”

Liz tosses back her first shot. “Gaps where those patches of azure used to be?”

“I guess, yeah,” Maria replies, struggling to put the pieces together. “It’ll heal soon enough but  _ God _ , it hurts.”

It’s enough confirmation for Liz. All trace of Max is gone from her. Ripped clean away. “I know.” And now she can cry, even as much as she fights it, hot tears burning a path down her cheeks.

Maria is there, soothing arms around her. “Hey now. What’s happened? Is Max…”

“Max is alive,” she manages to stammer out. “I brought him back.”

“Rosa told me. That’s good, isn’t it?” 

Liz nods, then begins shaking her head furiously. She can’t put this into words.

“He’s—he’s not—”

“Did something go wrong?” But Liz can’t reply, and instead Maria grabs the bottle and a couple of glasses. “Come on, let’s get settled for the night.”

It’s a long time since Liz has had a sleepover in the apartment behind the Pony, but nothing much has changed. Mimi isn’t here, but it’s easy to imagine she’s already asleep behind the closed door at the end of the hallway—the bedroom full of incense and chiffon. Instead they head into Maria’s room, where the old twin bed has been replaced with a queen, and the TLC posters have been replaced with Mucha prints.

Liz brought precious little with her but Maria’s got spare pyjamas and a toothbrush. Not that she needs them yet. Instead Maria pours out more tequila, though by now Liz has control over her tear ducts.

“Rosa’s texted me a potted summary,” Maria tells her. “Guess she got it from Max.”

Liz’s breath catches at his name. She tries to shrug it off, chasing it away with the fire of tequila, but it doesn’t numb everything like she’d hoped.

“I suppose this solves my dilemma,” she says, lying back on Maria’s bed, lifting up the shot glass to gaze through it, as though it will reveal the world in a different light.

Maria stretches out beside her to stroke her hair. “What dilemma?”

“Rosa or Max.”

“Sweetie, I don’t think you need to choose between them.”

“I would have to. Eventually. Rosa can’t stay in Roswell—it’s not fair, keeping her hidden like that. She deserves a fresh start somewhere she can be herself. Live a real life. I couldn’t give that to her and stay with Max.” She drops the glass onto the comforter. “Now it doesn’t matter.”

“So you’re leaving?” There’s a note of hesitation in Maria’s voice, and it spawns a flutter of guilt in Liz’s chest.

“I’m sorry. I know you’ve got your mom to deal with and you just found out all about the alien…crap.” Liz gives a vague sweep of her hand to demonstrate what she means. “I feel bad about leaving you again.”

“I know it’s probably the right thing for Rosa,” Maria concedes. “But is it the right thing for you?”

“Long term? Yeah.” It was always going to be a choice she had to make—between Max and her career, even if Rosa had remained a ghost. “I don’t like the project I’m working on. It’s not about healing people, it’s about harming them. I can back out now and find something else.”

“I don’t mean for your career. I mean for  _ you _ .”

“What else is there?” Liz whispers.

Rosa has a beautiful destiny. Liz knows that now—Mimi had seen it when the rest of them couldn’t. How it works, Liz isn’t sure, but she’s convinced it’s not magic. No, her gift—and Maria’s—is no more magic than Max’s ability to heal, or Michael’s telekinesis. It’s science, only science they don’t recognize yet. Strange and beautiful, beyond understanding. 

But Liz’s destiny? Mimi had no comment on that. Instead Liz can see a roadmap stretching in front of her. And it is a road—all the places she will live, reclaiming her stance as a nomad, rootless and restless. Love stories that will never blossom, because they will never compare to what she almost had. If she works hard enough, she can at least leave a legacy behind through her work. She can help other love stories take root and grow instead.

“Listen, I know you think this is the end of the road for you,” Maria says. “But I don’t think you should give up yet. There’s something bigger at play here. Something that made sure you came back to Roswell and put you straight into Deputy Evans’ path. The path that ended with us getting Rosa back.”

“Maybe that  _ is _ where it ends. Maybe that’s what I need to be thankful for. I have Rosa. She’s enough—she’s so much more than enough.”

“What if it’s not where it’s supposed to end? I’m telling you Liz, I feel like there’s something more to come. You managed to bring Max back from the dead—that’s not to be taken lightly. Who knows what else can be mended? You just gotta have a little faith.”

“That’s the problem, Maria.” Mucha’s  _ Evestar _ faces away in misery on the opposite wall. “I’m all out of faith.”

* * *

Max wakes from sleep in a jumble of thoughts and sensations, the last vestiges of a dream refusing to evaporate as he lies staring at his bedroom ceiling. It’s a tangle of hot smoke, screaming, and a sound like shattering glass, all wrapped up in a veil of pink, purple and blue. 

A memory of his resurrection? Or just a dream?

He’d thrown clean sheets on last night before climbing into bed, after knocking on the door of the spare room to check Rosa was okay. She hadn’t even opened up, only yelled through an acknowledgment, then confirmed nobody had changed his sheets while he was…away.

That’s not so weird, except as far as Max is concerned, yesterday he had sex with Liz in this bed.

As memories go, it’s vivid. It’s easy to conjure up the feel of her skin, how she’d tasted, how pliant she’d been underneath him. It had been the best sex of his life so far, no contest, and the feeling of her love thrumming through him after he’d created the psychic bond had left him ready to burst with happiness. All this, he remembers. Yet it means nothing to him.

It ought to bug him. It ought to be the only thing he can think of, disturbing to have such a fundamental aspect of his existence erased like this. Instead he feels…light. Refreshed. Like he’s had an extremely good night’s sleep instead of being dead for six weeks.

He doesn’t know what he’s done to deserve this feeling, but he’s not going to complain about it.

Rosa’s already slouched on his sofa eating cereal when he heads into the kitchen after showering and dressing. The sight of her freezes him in his tracks: from this angle she’s eerily similar to a young Liz. But she’s also the ghost who chased him through his dreams for years, screaming at him through flames for not saving her.

She salutes him with the spoon she’s using. “Deputy.”

It’s enough to shake him from his petrifaction, though he’s got no idea how to reply to her. She must know the entire story by now—every sordid detail—and the absolute cherry on top is him breaking up with Liz last night. 

“Have you heard from Liz?” he asks, deciding he might as well rip the bandaid right off.

Rosa nods, digging into her cereal rather than replying verbally. There’s an awkward moment where she pretends to focus on the TV rather than looking at him, and he fumbles for how to continue. Should he apologize, even though it’s not his fault—he’s not even sure what happened? Where would he even begin apologizing; for breaking Liz’s heart, or for covering up her murder?

He takes a different approach.

“You don’t have to move out,” he blurts.

Rosa pauses mid-chew to throw him a dubious look. “I doubt Liz is going to want to stay.”

“I don’t think she will,” he concedes, “but you can’t go back to the Crashdown with her.”

“There’s Alex’s cabin. Well, bunker. I stayed there before when I was drying out.”

“And do you really want to go back to it?”

The flicker in Rosa’s expression says  _ hell no _ , even as she attempts to shrug nonchalantly. “I get on with Alex. It’s less weird than living with my sister’s ex…whatever.”

“I work a lot. I’m barely here.” He’s not even sure why this is so important to him. He and Rosa have nothing in common—they didn’t even interact back when they were teenagers.

Maybe it’s the guilt. Of all the emotions he could stand to lose, that one is still right there. Burying her in Alex’s bunker hardly seems like a fair exchange after everything.

“I’ll think about it.”

He’s pretty sure that means where Liz goes, she’ll follow, but the offer is there. 

“Kyle’s on his way,” she continues. “He offered to check your vitals, make sure you’re all tickety-boo.” She saunters over to the counter with her empty bowl. “I’m so excited to see you with your shirt off.”

That manages to bring a wry smile to his face, even as he shakes his head at her, but he doesn’t have a witty comeback.

“Damn, no blush.” She looks genuinely disappointed. “You’re not at all like you used to be.”

He shrugs. “I can grow a beard now.”

“It’s not that.” She studies him, and he wants to shrink away from her stare. He always felt like Liz could see right through him, but it’s nothing compared to the way Rosa seems to be X-raying his soul. “Adulthood is rough, huh?”

“Something like that.”

He’s rescued by Kyle’s arrival, who only stares at him when he crosses the room to answer the door.

“I don’t think that’s ever going to stop being spooky,” Kyle mutters.

“What isn’t?” Rosa asks.

“People coming back from the dead.” He glances at Max as he drops his equipment bag on the coffee table and starts emptying it. “The last time I saw you—let’s just say, it was a flashback to the week I spent shadowing a pathologist in the morgue.”

Rosa gets her wish as Kyle runs a battery of tests on Max, and despite his ever-present distrust of doctors, Max finds himself relaxing in Kyle’s presence. He’s never liked the guy before, but this time around he seems less annoying. Definitely wary around Max, given their previous run-ins, but Max finds himself wondering why he ever disliked the man.

Oh. Of course. Liz.

Max steps outside to call the sheriff and let her know he’ll be back at work while Kyle finishes up, and before he slips back through the patio doors he hears Rosa and Kyle whispering to each other.

“I’m telling you, something went wrong,” Rosa insists. “People don’t just fall out of love like that. He is  _ not _ his normal self.”

“I’ll concede he’s not as uptight he usually seems, but his vitals are perfect compared to the baseline results we have from Isobel. There’s no evidence of cognitive damage. He’s fine.”

“How can you be sure? How can anybody tell if bringing someone back from the dead like that isn’t going to bring them back all wrong?”

“He brought you back, and you’re good as new.”

Rosa doesn’t reply to Kyle, and her silence speaks volumes to Max, but when Max steps back inside Kyle seems oblivious to her discomfort. 

“We all done here?” Max asks. “I’m heading down to the station to start some paperwork.”

“All done,” Kyle confirms, and to his clear astonishment, Max shakes his hand. 

“Thanks for all you’ve done.”

Kyle’s confusion is worth it, but as Max turns, there’s a ghost in the glass of the patio doors: Rosa, arms folded in sullen contemplation.

But the ghost shifts into another Rosa: eyes vacant, skin absolutely cold as he pours everything he has into reviving her. There are flames, boiling around her and threatening to swallow both of them, and then Rosa is gone, smothered in smoke as screams erupt around them—

Kyle knocks a book off the coffee table and it clatters to the floor, waking Max from the spell. Rosa is still there in the glass, but now she’s watching him with wary eyes, and the screams still ring in his ears. The screams he dreamed of too.

Maybe he’s not as fine as Kyle believes.

* * *

 

Somewhere between the witching hour and dawn, exhaustion sinks its claws into Liz and drags her under. She wakes, after not nearly enough sleep, to Maria’s soft snoring and the gnawing thirst of a minor hangover.

For a moment there’s a swell of elation—she remembers that Max is alive, and it’s the best feeling in the world, a bubble of sunlight inside her chest. But it only lasts long enough for the crushing memory of all else that followed to come back. The bubble bursts.

Because Maria is a goddess, she has a decanter of water beside her bed, a blessing which allows Liz to quench her thirst without moving. The first glassful carries a faint trace of tequila, since she’s using the same glass from the night before, but after that it’s refreshingly tasteless.

When she moves to roll over, Maria is squinting at her. “Oh, thank god.”

“Not who you were expecting?”

“I had a moment of panic I let my guard down with Guerin again. I am much happier to see you.” To demonstrate, she snuggles in closer to Liz. The errant beam of sunlight which has snuck through the gap between the curtains glints on Maria’s pendant as she moves.

“You wear that even in bed?” Liz asks, reaching out to run her finger along the curve of glass. It’s warm from Maria’s body heat.

“Yeah. It’s a comfort thing.”

Only this has reminded Liz, one of a number of details from the night of Noah’s death that got lost in everything that came after. “You know I told you I was researching the flower inside it?”

Maria hums confirmation, even as she seems to be drifting off to sleep again.

“It was because the pollen can be used against aliens to nullify their powers.”

When Maria’s eyes blink open again, her stare is sharp. “What?”

“Noah used it against Max and Michael. That’s why I was looking into it. I always meant to dig into that more but other things took priority.”

Maria’s fingers close around the pendant. “So this is more than a family heirloom?”

“Honestly, I have no idea. Probably not?”

“I wish I could ask more questions, but…” Maria sighs. “Mom barely recognizes me now. She’s not going to spill family secrets to me.”

“Maybe there are other ways to find out,” Liz suggests. Her phone vibrates on the dresser, and she reaches across to grab it. Rosa has sent a message saying Max has left the house for the day.

She closes her eyes at the sight of his name.

“Liz, honey?”

“Guess now is as good a time as any to go pack my stuff up.”

“So you’re definitely moving out of Max’s place?”

“Staying there is a special kind of masochism I have no taste for. And since I don’t have to work today, I can start looking for research positions far away from here. Say, Palo Alto?”

Maria’s answer is quiet and sad. “I liked him for you.”

The coast is definitely clear by the time Liz reaches Max’s house, and Rosa has already collected most of Liz’s stuff into boxes. It means Liz barely has to cross the threshold—and she’s thankful for that, because Max’s renewed presence can already be felt, even when he’s out. She’s torn between wanting to bask in it--bask in the knowledge that he’s alive again—and be on the road so fast she leaves only a trail of dust in her wake.

“Is this all of it?” She frowns at the empty space in the trunk of her car. “I thought you bought more stuff than this.”

Rosa chews her lower lip. “I’m not moving out.”

Liz’s heart drops through her body and ends somewhere under Max’s driveway. “What?”

“Max said I don’t have to move out if I don’t want to. And…I don’t want to. Not if it means going to Valenti’s bunker. There’s no cable there.” It’s a deflection, but one Liz understands. She’s not seen the bunker, but she wouldn’t want to live in one either.

“Maybe you don’t have to stay in the bunker itself,” she replies. “Alex’s cabin is pretty remote. Even more remote than this.”

“Exactly. No cable.”

For the first time, it dawns on Liz what kind of memories Rosa might have of the cabin. “Okay, okay, I get it. But it means that to come see you—” She’ll have to see Max too.

“I’m sorry. It’s going to be weird, especially when I can feel his emotions and shit when he’s nearby, but that fades, right?” Rosa’s hand rests on her chest, and Liz remembers that underneath her t-shirt, her sister bears a handprint like Liz’s. Only hers must be a real one, not the defective version Liz wears.

“You can feel him?” Liz asks breathlessly.

Rosa nods. “Yeah. Though it’s kind of hard trying to figure out what’s me and what’s him.”

“How is he?” She doesn’t want to know, shouldn’t be pressing on this bruise, but she does it anyway.

“Good. He feels good. Confused, and there’s this…gap inside him, but it’s closing up.” They both know what the gap is, and Liz almost sways on her feet at the thought.

She clears her throat, pushing away the knot forming there. She’s not crying any more tears over this. “Well, it won’t be for long. I’m going to start looking at where we can go. A job in a sanctuary city where you can have a fresh start and  _ papi _ will be safe.”

“You mean that?” Rosa looks almost as sad as Maria did earlier.

“Yeah. It might take a little time, but we don’t have to stay here. Not when there’s nothing left for us.”

* * *

Isobel’s always been clingy. Despite her persistent attempts to pretend she’s an ice queen, Max has never been far from her, physically or in spirit. The six weeks she’d spent in the pod while Liz worked frantically to find a cure had been the longest, coldest six weeks of Max’s life. He’d never felt so isolated, or so relieved when their connection was restored.

Which is why he understands Isobel’s constant need to touch him today: patting his shoulder, grabbing his hand, tousling his hair. She hasn’t been this affectionate since they were children, but he gets it. The fact she even left the night before at his request was a miracle, but she’d understood his need to talk to Liz in private.

“Be gentle with her,” she’d said, knowing without a discussion what he needed to tell Liz. “She’s done so much for us. And we deserved none of it.”

Now they’re sat in Isobel’s living room, Max an exile from his own house while he gives Liz space, listening to the squeak of the wheel from the rat cage in the corner.

Apparently plenty can change in six weeks.

“How are you?” Max asks his sister between sips of Earl Grey. “How have you been, and why do you have a new pet?”

“ _ They _ are called Remy and Rizzo, and I adopted them after a project we were running with Liz. It’s nice to have a little company around the place.”

The house feels bare. She’s been through and stripped out nearly everything—all of Noah’s possessions are gone, and most of the furnishings too, even paintings removed from the wall. Any trace of her husband or the life she shared with him scoured from their home. What remains is what’s too difficult to replace easily, and even then it’s been covered up, like the new throw over the sofa.

“But rats?” he asks. “You?”

“They grew on me. I was thinking of getting a cat, but rats are pretty intelligent little things and they seem to like me. Want to know what else is new?”

He waits expectantly, but Isobel doesn’t speak or move. Instead, one of the new cushions comes sailing through the air to smack him in the face. 

“That’s cheating!” he says, grabbing it a moment too late and aiming it back at her. She tosses it away. “How did you learn to do that?”

“I’ve been practicing,” she beams. “Michael and I have both been trying to expand our powers. It’s what we were working on with Liz.”

There’s so much unspoken there, underneath Isobel’s pride. It’s not hard to guess what power they were trying to learn, or that it was unsuccessful. How the rats figured into that is more mysterious, but he’s not going to ask. It’s also easy to understand why Isobel has been working on her abilities, given all that unraveled the night Max died.

For all the time they’d spent pretending to be human, ignoring their alien nature in a vain hope it would never become an issue, they’d been proven catastrophically wrong. Maybe Michael had been right about their need for answers—if not about getting them from Noah.

Max was never admitting that to him.

“What else can you do?” he asks.

“Pretty much just that,” she admits. “Michael can fry things with his hands, but I’m not interested in that. And I’ve also decided I’m never messing around in people’s heads again. It’s going to have to be a life or death thing and even then—”

She glances away.

“Fair,” he says. And it is, given what they know now, and what Noah had done inside her own head. She nods, but continues staring at the sideboard, where there used to be a tasteful array of framed photos. Instead, only one remains: the three of them as teenagers. “I spoke to the sheriff today. I’ll be back at work by the end of the week.”

“That’s good. In the meantime, you can clear out my garage and take some old stuff to the junkyard.”

“Alright.” He pauses, unsure of how to approach the next topic. “Valenti told me his death has been ruled an accident. You claimed the body.”

Isobel stiffens. “He was cremated. I made sure of it—scattered his ashes in three different places. We had a small ceremony but I told mom and dad I didn’t want a wake.”

“Iz—”

“The life insurance check should come through any day now and then the house is paid off. I’m going to sell it, move somewhere smaller. Hence the need to Marie Kondo my life. Unfortunately, not much here is sparking joy.”

“I have no idea what that means.”

“You have too much to catch up on and I don’t think you ever will.”

“Come on,” he says, getting ready to move. “I may as well make a start on getting your stuff ready for the junkyard. I can see Michael while I’m up there.”

He places his empty mug on the side table—or at least in the spot where the side table used to be. It drops to the floor, shattering against the tiles, the last dregs of tea puddling beneath the remains.

He’s focused on another shattering.

_ The ship’s going down! _

_ How can that be? _

The words aren’t English, but he can understand them anyway. He hears them against a background of cracking, arrhythmic pops and distant yelling. In the back of his throat he can taste acrid smoke, and within him panic wells—not just his own panic, but the panic of all of them, everyone on the ship connected and broadcasting their emotions.

_ Sabotage. There’s no way to save it. _

_ Then we must protect them. _

He recognizes this voice, but he can’t see who it belongs to, only feel a wave of connection to whoever it is—the knowledge that she loves him, and he loves her, and she has risked everything to protect him. She is shrouded in the smoke billowing around them, but the face of who she talks to is clear: familiar, but without the same rush of emotions. Dark hair and eyes, smooth tawny skin, and tight curls drawn back from her forehead in braids. 

_ We must all get into the pods. I will stay with them. _

Hands are guiding him—and Isobel, and Michael, who are beside him somewhere—towards the waiting gleam of the pods, the only bright things among the darkness and the fear. 

_ Be brave for me.  _ A whisper in his head, featherlight but brimming with so much emotion.

There’s no time for any more comfort than that. The hands keep pushing him, into the sanctuary of the pod: cool, peaceful, blank. 

He’s on his knees on Isobel’s floor, blinking at the brightness of the room, panting at the way all of those emotions have been wrenched away from him: all the panic gone, but the overwhelming love too, leaving him bereft and on the verge of tears.

Isobel is beside him, hands gripping his arms, wide-eyed. “What was that?” she asks, and it’s not hard to hear the thready note of fear in her voice. Then her expression shifts to recognition. “You look like someone who’s had a vision.”

He can barely speak for being overwhelmed, but he manages.  “I think I just remembered the crash.”

* * *

Despite not being due to work, Liz finds herself in the lab anyway, channeling her feelings into science. Science never lets her down (except when it does, but there’s logic to it when that happens). Science is a better option than unloading her meager belongings in the attic room she still won’t be sharing with Rosa and wondering if it’s even worth unpacking if they’re going to be leaving soon.

There’s a bigger picture to what they’re doing here at the facility and she still can’t figure out what it is. They’ve gone beyond sequencing the alien DNA and into trying to isolate segments of it that are different to human DNA, to analyze and manipulate the structure. The military don’t know it, but Liz has a head start on them with the serum she made, though she’s not giving them anything which will turn alien cells into mitochondrial soup.

A knock at the lab door disturbs the peace of the empty room, and she glances up to find Alex letting himself into the room.

“Maria said I might find you here,” he says. “It sounds like your love life is going as well as mine.”

Liz jabs the pipette she’s holding angrily into a beaker of solution. “Wanna run away with me to California?”

“Tempting, but I can’t bring down a secret government conspiracy from there. Speaking of—can I introduce you to someone?”

She notices he’s still holding the door open. “Sure.”

He gestures into the corridor, and a woman steps into the room. Alex closes the door behind her. The newcomer is tall and willowy—easily Max’s height—with honey-blonde hair and a pretty heart-shaped face. There’s something familiar about her—a resemblance to somebody else, but Liz can’t place it. The woman holds herself uneasily despite her size, like she’s trying to take up less space than she does, shrinking away from the world.

“Hey,” Liz greets her, stripping off her gloves to cross the room and shake the woman’s hand. “Liz Ortecho.”

The newcomer takes her hand tentatively, but the handshake itself is firm and well-practiced. “Charlie Cameron.”

“You must be Jenna’s sister!” Liz says.  _ That’s  _ where the familiarity comes from: up close she has the same hazel eyes, though her voice is huskier. “You managed to get her out?” she asks Alex.

“I convinced one of the project leaders we need Charlie’s skills. In return she’s received clemency.”

“So long as I keep my mouth shut this time,” Charlie says. “With the implication that if I don’t, I probably won’t be going back to prison but—” She draws a line across her throat with her index finger.

That explains the obvious nerves.

“I don’t really know what you did,” Liz replies, “but I’m sure Jenna is thrilled that you’re here.”

“There’s a reason I got her out, and it’s not just for Jenna,” Alex says. “There’s stuff I’ve been investigating in the Caulfield files, and I need her help. Charlie’s the best of the best.”

“I don’t know about that—” she protests, and her humility seems genuine.

“It’s true,” Alex insists. “But I need to be able to tell her everything.  _ Everything _ . It’s the only way to figure out what’s really going on and how to put a stop to it.”

“Oh.” Liz finds herself fidgeting with the ring on her finger, spinning it around. “It’s not really my place to give permission.”

“But you’re in contact with all the people who can.” Alex raises an eyebrow. “Some of them aren’t returning my calls.”  

“I’ll see what I can do.” Liz turns back to Charlie. “If you’ve been let out on good behavior, isn’t helping Alex sabotage this the opposite of that? And extremely risky?”

Charlie’s answering smile is grim. “Knowing what I know has only made me more determined. Whatever happens to me is a small price to pay for the truth.”

* * *

“What did you see?” Isobel’s question is eager. She’s made Max another mug of tea—after cleaning up the remains of the old mug—and prompted him to remain on the sofa to pump him for details after he admitted he’d had a few, briefer, flashes of the same vision earlier in the day.

“I’m not sure, it was kind of hazy. There was all this smoke...everywhere. But you were there with me. I could feel you.”

“Anything else?”

“I think I remember our mother.”

Isobel’s mouth drops open. “What—was she—how did—what was she like?”

He shakes his head. “I couldn’t see her, but I could feel her presence. Like I can feel yours.” He’s grabbed hold onto the feeling after the vision cleared, tried to anchor it inside himself so he can sink into it if he wants to. “She was—she was love. That’s all I can describe it as.” He takes a sip of the tea, a pale imitation of that warm presence. “I heard her voice, though. It was kind of deep, like yours.”

Her hands are over her mouth now, but her eyes remain wide.

“What happened?” she whispers.

“I don’t know. We were crashing, but that’s it. I don’t remember anything else. But she came with us, Iz. She came with us to Earth. She’d survived whatever happened on our own planet.”

“Do you think she survived the crash? What if—what if—” Isobel takes a deep breath, “what if she was in Caulfield?”

“I don’t know how we’d even find that out.” Max isn’t sure he wants to.

“There has to be a way of triggering more memories. I mean, why are you even remembering this now? Do you think it was the pod? Or the lightning?” She snaps her fingers. “We need Liz.”

“No.  _ No _ . That’s not fair to her.”

“I’m sure we can appeal to her scientific curiosity.”

“I’m not appealing to anything, Isobel. The last person she wants to see is me.”

But Isobel isn’t listening, grabbing her phone and holding it out of his reach. “Fine. I’ll ask her. The antidote serum worked wonders on me, and I think it will on you too.”

She sweeps out of the room before he can argue with her any further.

* * *

Liz is sat on a table in the corner of the Crashdown, eating breakfast while knee-deep in an Internet search on Charlie Cameron. She never expected the other woman to have her own Wikipedia page, but she does and it’s illuminating. 

She’s a whistleblower, and an infamous one at that, driven by her conscience to leak the existence of a top-secret project which had damaged the US relationship with half a dozen countries and launched countless lawsuits from US citizens for breaches of their constitutional rights. 

The US government doesn’t yet seem to have understood the Streisand effect either, because every attempt at keeping the story down had only made Charlie’s cause more popular, up to and including her fight to be moved from the mens’ prison she’d originally been held in. The few direct quotes from her online certainly match the tenacious woman Liz met yesterday.

She’s not paying attention to her surroundings, so only notices somebody has sprawled into the seat opposite her when he clears his throat.

“I’ll take a Shatner’s special shake and a breakfast burrito.”

She glances up at Michael, who’s wearing a lopsided smirk, and does her best attempt to kill him with her eyes.

“I’m not working. See, no antenna? And you can wipe that smile off your face, I already told Isobel no.”

A phone call had turned into Isobel dropping by the Crashdown herself last night, interrupting Liz’s plans to do some online job hunting. Instead, her mood had been soured by not being allowed to compartmentalize and pretend her heart wasn’t breaking in peace. Her only retreat was a  _ Mythbusters _ marathon and a family-sized bag of Doritos to herself. 

“I know. I figured she didn’t explain the situation to you properly.”

“No, she made it pretty clear. But I’m done. No more favors.” She shrugs. “Go see Kyle.”

“Kyle is a surgeon.” He leans in closer, lowers his voice. “You’re the one who understands our DNA. You’re the one who made the serum.”

“Fine. You can have the vials to work it out for yourself.” He doesn’t react to that offer. “Please don’t ask this of me, Michael.” She winces at her pleading tone, which sounds pathetic to her own ears. 

His smile drops, replaced with a frown of concern. “Look, I wouldn’t, but this is important. This is our opportunity to get answers without anybody else getting hurt.”

“Except me. I can’t spend time with him. I just can’t.”

“You’re the only person who can help us figure out how to unlock his memories. The only person I trust to do it.”

It’s a big admission. One Liz doesn’t take lightly, given how few people Michael does trust, and his initial dislike of her. Yet it doesn’t change how she feels. “I’ll give you all my notes, everything that might help. But you’re on your own with this one.” 

* * *

Finding time to talk to Kyle is simple: Max just has to wait for the doctor to swing by and visit Rosa, which he does on an almost daily basis. Max would offer to get a spare key cut for him, but there’s no need when he never bothers to lock the door anymore.

He gives the siblings space, lighting up the fire pit to sit and enjoy the landscape with a peppermint tea.

Despite buying the house because of the incredible views it offered (and maybe the isolation), he’d never really taken the time to admire them. Sitting out here like this isn’t something he’d ever taken the time to do, with the excuse that he had nobody to share it with. Now he realizes he doesn’t need company to enjoy it. It’s enough to sit here and  _ be _ . How many times has he missed the opportunity to unwind after a chaotic day at work and just live in the moment?

It’s the perfect spot to sit and write too. The image of curling up out here with a notebook convinces him there’s no better place on Earth to provide inspiration and tranquility.

The truth is, he knows why he never did that, but now the albatross around his shoulders is the living, breathing woman inhabiting his spare room. Maybe now’s the time for him to start breathing again himself.

He hears the patio door click open and glances behind to find Kyle studying him.

“Hey man. You want a drink?” Max offers. “I’d offer you a beer but there’s no alcohol in the house.” For Rosa’s sake.

Kyle’s as surprised by the friendly greeting as he was with the handshake yesterday. “No, I’m good. Just checking there haven’t been any developments since yesterday.”

“Like?”

“I don’t know, this is all new to me too. Headaches, blurred vision, sudden bouts of levitation—whatever.”

“There is one thing.” He nods to the vacant chair opposite and Kyle takes it, warming his hands over the fire.

“It’s not actually levitation, is it?”

“No. It’s—I’ve been having these visions, I guess. Or memories. Like something about being brought back has jump-started a part of my brain from before the crash.”

“The UFO crash?”

 “Yeah, I think so. So far I keep seeing the same memory, but I need answers. We all need answers. I need a way to access all my memories to get them.”

“Liz’s serum helped trigger Isobel’s memories, didn’t it?”

“Yeah, she gave it all to Michael yesterday. It’s made the existing vision more intense, but it hasn’t unlocked anything new. Not yet. And Michael’s thing was always physics, not biology.”

“Right. And you can’t ask Liz because—” Kyle lets the answer lie between them unspoken.

“No, actually, both Michael and Isobel have asked her. She won’t help, and I don’t blame her.”

Kyle’s expression suggests he doesn’t either. “So…you’re asking me if I can do what Liz does?”

“You’re an actual doctor. I’d trust you more than I’d trust Michael not to kill me with a botched experiment.”

“Heartwarming as that vote of confidence is, it’s misplaced. I’m a surgeon. A good one—maybe one day a great one—but what you need is beyond my capabilities. Liz is beyond good already. Liz is brilliant. I wouldn’t want anyone else messing with my DNA and frankly, neither should you.”

Max sighs. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

* * *

Liz is finishing close down at the Crashdown, her father upstairs getting some of the rest Kyle said he needs but he rarely actually indulges in. She’s doesn’t have the jukebox on—she’s almost died the last two times she did that, she’s not risking a third—so instead she’s humming Sara Bareilles and dancing to nothing.

The jangle of the chimes above the door just about gives her a full body flashback, but when she wheels to face the threshold,  _ he _ isn’t there. Maria is.

An utterly miserable Maria.

She isn’t crying, not yet, but it’s easy to see she’s barely holding herself together, her arms wrapped around herself like it’s the only thing keeping her from fracturing apart. 

Liz drops what she’s holding and rushes over, arms outstretched, so Maria can collapse into them.

The words Maria sobs into her shoulder are unintelligible but it doesn’t matter. She needs to let it all out; context can come later. Liz guides them both to the nearest booth and they curl into it, while she runs a soothing hand through Maria’s hair and down her back, cooing comforting nonsense words to her.

When the sobbing’s done and reduced to hiccoughs, Liz makes them both hot chocolate with extra marshmallows and a kick of rum.

“If this was because of Michael, I will reduce him to goo,” she threatens. “And he knows I know how to do that.”

Maria shakes her head miserably, stirring the hot chocolate without taking a sip. “It’s my mom.”

Liz stiffens. “How is she?” she asks gently.

“She’s fine. Perfectly happy, from what I can tell. She always wins the card games they play in the home.” Her fingers find old graffiti carved into the table and begin tracing it. “But when I went over tonight, she didn’t recognize me at all. Refused to speak to me—called me a liar and threatened me if I ever went back there.” 

The tears start again, gentler this time, and Liz fetches her some tissues and the bottle of rum.

“What do I do?” Maria asks desperately. “How can I help her when I don’t even know what’s happening to her?” 

Maria’s wearing the pendant—of course she is, she always does—and Liz can’t take her eyes off of it. It’s been there all this time, the hint of the otherworldly—or the extraterrestrial. She just hasn’t wanted to admit it until now.

“Maybe we need to look at other options,” she suggests. “The possibility that this isn’t a normal illness, and there won’t be a normal solution.”

Maria catches her gaze. “You mean aliens?”

“Is it so unlikely, given what we know?”

“I guess not. But I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

“Leave it to me. I have an idea.”

Maria is soothed enough to decline Liz’s offer of spending the night and retreat to the sanctuary of the Pony, leaving Liz to finish cleaning up long after she should have finished. There’s no sign of  _ papi _ , which means he’s probably snoring on the sofa in front of  _ Club de Cuervos _ . What would it be like to lose him the way Maria is losing her mother, with him physically present but absent nonetheless? For him to not remember her at all?

At least Max still knows her. At least the way he felt about her is the only thing they have lost, and the man she brought back is whole in all the ways that matter. If she can give Mimi back to Maria, it will be worth whatever it’s going to cost Liz while she stays in Roswell to fix it.

The bells chime again, and this time she doesn’t need to turn around to see who it is: his shadow is obvious as he steps through the door. She might as well have put the jukebox on and tempted fate; getting shot in the heart was less painful than this.

“Liz.” He pauses, hands in his pockets, waiting for her to indicate it’s okay for him to be here.

“I already told Michael and Isobel I can’t help you,” she tells him hoarsely, turning away to scrub at the closest table. 

“Can’t, or won’t?” 

She ignores him to clear away the untouched hot chocolate she made for Maria.

“You don’t owe me anything,” he continues. “I get that. Believe me, if I had anyone else to turn to, I would.”

“Kyle—”

“Kyle told me what we both already knew he was going to. He can’t do what I need him to. He can’t help me get the answers I want—answers you know are important to my family.” 

She’s biting her lower lip hard enough it’s probably bleeding, just to keep her tears locked away. She won’t shed them in front of him, not if she means nothing to him.

“Answers that might help us figure out how to protect ourselves,” he continues, “from the military and whoever—whatever—else might come after us.”

He rounds the table, stooping a little so he’s not looming over her, and it’s a fresh round of breathless pain. All the ways Max tries to make himself look nonthreatening around people: this, and how he can speak so softly and quietly, like he is doing now. How he’s pleading with her with just his eyes, far more effectively than Michael could ever hope to.

“You’re the only one who can help me with this. All my memories of you confirm that.”

This isn’t fair. 

“I know you plan to leave town,” he murmurs, “but will you please stay a little while longer? I know it won’t be easy for you, but maybe spending time together will help us figure out what went wrong with the bond between us.”

It’s a low blow, but one she can’t complain about, not when she dealt it the first time around. He doesn’t need to know she’d already changed her plans—for Maria’s sake, not his—or that the spark of hope at the idea of them somehow finding a way to repair the bond is the warmest she’s felt since he broke her heart.

“Fine. Yes, I’ll help you.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did not intend for the gap between chapters to be this big, but it was. Sorry. I'm a slow writer even when I try not to be.
> 
> Thanks go, as ever, to maxortecho for helping to figure out what I was trying to achieve with this chapter and wrestle it into shape.
> 
> Oh, and viaomens made some artwork for this story ([here on Tumblr](https://viaomens.tumblr.com/post/187030633419/new-echo-poster-inspired-by-the)) which is incredible and lovely...and got featured in Jeanine's Instagram stories. Which means Jeanine kind of sort of knows about this story. The beauty of a tiny fandom, I suppose? Anyway, there was much internal flailing when I saw that.

Blue liquid spills into green with a hiss, the contents of the beaker turning murky brown. Liz gives the liquid a shake as she frowns down at it. It is  _ not _ meant to be that color. 

The light in Michael’s bunker is darker than Liz would prefer, and the entire space smells faintly of solder and stale weed, but she can hardly do this at the facility. Cooking up more batches of serum and trying to enhance its neurological effects isn’t something she wants to do in her bedroom either. Turns out, location is the least of her problems.

They need more of the stuff from the pods, but with two of them destroyed, contents lost to the ether, it’s a limited material. They had chance to analyze it when she still worked at the hospital, but recreating it is another matter entirely. Michael’s working on that (or so he claims). Liz doesn’t hold out much hope. It’s like nothing she’s seen on Earth, so it’s not as simple as replicating the chemical formula.

As if thinking of Michael has summoned him, she hears muffled footsteps behind her, the hollow thud of boots on ladder rungs. She turns as he lopes into the bunker, all wild curls and misbuttoned flannel, a lopsided grin suggesting he’s had a good day above ground.

His neck is absent a handprint. His faded, as did Rosa’s. Liz has taken to covering her own unfading, half-formed print with a thick layer of foundation every morning, barely looking at it as she buries it beneath a new form of armor.

“We good to go?” he asks, pointing at the old beer cooler which is now home to slides smeared with alien DNA samples.

“This batch is a wash,” she replies, dumping the contents of the beaker down the sink. “I’ve been playing around with the formula but I think I went too far this time. It should be yellow.”

“But you’ve got other batches, right?”

“Untested batches, yes. Batches which need to be  _ thoroughly _ tested before we start injecting Max with them. I need you to keep an eye on those samples and text me if there’s any deterioration, okay?”

“You mean I don’t get to liquefy my brother through risky science?” He makes an  _ aw shucks _ motion and pokes his head into the cooler. “So where are you going, if you’re leaving me in charge? To see Maria?”

Liz summons the best side-eye she can manage. “I’m not going to be in the middle.”

“I didn’t—”

“Maria’s been my best friend since I was five. You do not compare.”

He throws his hands up in surrender. “Alright, I was just going to ask how she’s doing.”

“Ask her yourself when you settle your tab.”

“What about—”

“I’m not talking to you about Alex either.”

He shuts his mouth and grunts. 

As it happens, she does head to the Pony when she leaves the junkyard. It’s still early evening and quiet inside when she arrives, none of her new coworkers around. When she approaches the bar, Tobey the bartender sends her through the back into the Deluca apartment, at Maria’s instruction.

Maria herself is hip deep in boxes stacked in her living room, the corduroy couch and armchairs almost invisible amongst the clutter. She glances up when Liz enters through the bead curtain, her attention drawn away from the faded, yellowing piece of paper she’s holding.

“Having a yard sale?” Liz asks.

Maria’s gaze returns to the paper in her hand, her forehead creasing into a frown. “No. I decided to get some stuff out of the loft to try and figure out my family history.”

“By the looks on your face, I’d say you found something.”

“Yeah.” Maria holds out the paper to Liz. It’s obvious this is some kind of official paperwork with one glance: there’s a crest at the top, stamps and signatures at the bottom. “Not what I was expecting.”

It’s a death certificate for one Myrtle Deluca, who died in 1999. The certificate was issued by Chaves County, but the death was recorded in a care facility in Dexter, a small town to the south of Roswell. Cause of death a vague “natural causes”.

“Was she a relative?” Liz asks. 

Maria nods. “She was my grandmother.”

Liz frowns. “I thought your grandma died before you were born?”

“So did I! That’s what’s weird—mom has all this paperwork and none of it matches what I know.” She hands over another bundle of papers to Liz. “No name is recorded for my father on my birth certificate, and that’s not a surprise, mom always told me he was a nobody. But there’s nothing for my mother’s father either. No indication my grandma was ever married. She was born here in 1950, three years after my great-grandmother arrived.” She rifles through the stack and points to evidence as she speaks. “The deeds for the bar—bought by Myriam Deluca in October 1947.” Not just the deeds, but time-bleached posters offering psychic readings.

“That’s the year of the spaceship crash.”

“I’m starting to think that’s not a coincidence. And you know what happened to my great-grandmother? She was institutionalized too. She died in the old asylum.”

When Maria looks at Liz again, the fear is etched into her face.

“Every woman in my family has lost her mind. What if that happens to me too?”

* * *

Static crackles from the radio speaker, filling the cabin of the cruiser. Cam sighs at the dispatcher’s voice as he begins asking for a unit to pick up and leans forward to pick up the response unit.

“Guess one uninterrupted donut break is too much to ask for,” she says to Max before pressing the button to make the mic go live. “Deputies Cameron and Evans responding. Go ahead.”

“ _ Noise complaint _ .”

“Ten bucks it’s Sanders,” Max mutters. 

Cam offers a swift thumbs up to indicate she’s taking the bet. “Location?”

“ _ Mountain View trailer park _ .“ Nowhere near the junkyard.

“On it.” Max curses as she grins and peels the car away from the curb. “Taking your money is too easy.”

It’s Max’s first day back on the job, so he’s been assigned to work with Cam to ease him back in. Valenti’s orders, which guarantees she has no idea about their… _ romantic _ history, but so far it hasn’t been as awkward as he’d feared. Cam picked him up with coffee and donuts and reminded him the day was probably going to be a boring parade of speeding tickets and misdemeanors.

It was more than he could ask for, given the last time he saw, she was hinting that somewhere along the way she'd fallen in love with him. He’d opened his mouth to begin apologizing when he climbed into the cruiser, and she’d shut him up with a curt “Glad you’re not dead anymore. That sucked. Let’s get on with keeping the crime rate of this town disappointingly low.”

That doesn’t make his guilt dissipate any, but it doesn’t run as deep as the way he feels about hurting Liz. He can recognize that he messed Cam around, despite them both entering their arrangement with their eyes wide open, but it’s not his fault she’d fallen for him. In fact, it was pretty weird, considering how poorly he had treated her. But as the day unwinds, their easy banter—no need to fill the silence constantly, but an ability to make each other laugh—helps him realize that maybe it wasn’t that hard to understand after all. Friendship—or at least companionship—and great sex was a pretty good place to start for most people.

No, the only mystery here was why nobody else in town had snatched up Cam long before Max had the chance to bungle things. 

“So what’s it like being dead?” Cam casually asks as they drive down Main Street, back to the Sheriff’s office.

It’s so casual Max has to take a moment to process it before he can even formulate an answer. “I don’t know. I don’t remember it.” It’s the frustrating truth. One moment he’d been in the cave, kneeling over Rosa’s body, pushing through a wave of pain and exhaustion; the next he’d been tumbling out of the fractured pod onto Liz in the storm.

“Huh. I guess that should push me from agnostic to full-blown atheist.”

It’s uncomfortably close to his own feelings. Not even death had answered questions he’d been pursuing all his life. “Or maybe me being an alien stopped me getting into human heaven?”

“Nah, dogs definitely go to heaven, so aliens must do as well. I refuse to accept a heaven that doesn’t have other species in it.” Her sideways smile reminds him that maybe her feelings for him haven’t necessarily faded over the past few months.

He digs through his head for a safer topic, and comes up with one that’s bound to sour her mood. “Wyatt Long still on house arrest?”

Sure enough, the smile drops from her face. “Yeah, but it’s daddy’s big house with the pool and media room. Why would he even want to leave? It’s not like he’s going to be drinking with his best buddy at the Pony anymore.”

“Did Maria bar him?” It wouldn’t be a surprise. Maria barely tolerated half her clientele and would definitely put Liz’s safety above them.

“No, it’s because racist Hank is dead.” At what Max must presume is his confused expression, she elaborates. “Killed by Noah, according to Kyle. The night of the big storm. Did nobody tell you?”

He shakes his head. “Guess that’s one of those details that got lost in the bigger stuff.” And the night of the big storm...the night before he died. The night he killed Noah. “Noah must have killed Hank when Liz tricked him.”

Hank died in Liz’s place. Max knows he should feel sorry for the death of a human at Noah’s hands-alien hands--but Hank doesn’t feel like much of a loss to the world. Not compared to what it would have lost in Liz.

He’s not even sure where that thought comes from.

“The trial is taking a while,” he comments instead.

“Valenti stalled them. Their star witness was a little preoccupied.” Cam jerks her head in his direction.

They pause at a stop sign and some idiot, obviously not seeing the cruiser, goes past them at way above the speed limit.

“This will be fun,” Cam mutters, turning the lights on and pulling out to give chase.

Max isn’t sure what happens next, because he’s back in the crashing spaceship, pulsing red and blue lights giving way to violet and gray, smoke and the the soft cocoon of the pod closing around him. Then he’s slipping out of the pod, blinking at the dim interior of—is that—the cave?

“Earth to Evans.” 

Cam’s voice brings him back to reality, the newest snippet of the memory slipping away from him like smoke. He grunts in annoyance, turning to face her.

“What was that?” she asks. They’ve parked up, the car they’d been chasing pulled up in front of them, awaiting a visitation from the deputies.

“Not important,” he says. “Go, deal with them. I’ll explain when you’re done.”

“You sure you’re not going to pass out on me?”

“I’m good,” he reassures her. “I’ll still be alive when you get back.”

But what he wants is another dose of Liz's serum, chasing the remnants of the vision whether conscious or not.

* * *

The drive to Sunset Mesa Assisted Living is short. It’s not too far out of town, surrounded by enough open desert it probably has decent views of the sunsets it’s named after.

Liz drives because Maria is too anxious, her fingers rhythmically tracing over the faded lettering of the paperwork in her lap even if she doesn’t actually look at any of it. Sometimes her hand strays to the pendant at her throat, stroking the glass soothingly.

“She’s not going to remember anything,” Maria says quietly. “There’s no point asking her.”

“I know.” Liz understands this visit is going to be hard for Maria. If Mimi really doesn’t recognize her anymore…she can’t imagine Arturo looking at her and not knowing her. The only family Maria has ever known, lost to her. “But if I’m going to figure out what’s causing this, I need to know what the problem is first.”

Maria is going to submit a request for all of Mimi’s medical records so Liz can review all the tests that have been done so far. She doubts all the different scans Mimi’s had will reveal anything to her that wouldn’t show up for neurologists, but the more information Liz has the more secure she’ll feel in trying to find a cure.

In the meantime, they need to figure out where Myriam Deluca came from in 1947. She’d had the money to buy the bar but no husband—not an issue as far as Liz is concerned, but a mystery when it came to who’d fathered Maria’s grandmother. Where had Myriam come from? Had she left a larger family behind somewhere else? 

The obvious suggestion is that she’d been a survivor of the same crash that brought Max and his siblings to Earth, except why did the Deluca women have a pendant containing a substance that dampened alien powers? And why, when they passed it onto their daughters when they turned 18, did they all experience cognitive degradation like Mimi? Liz doesn’t expect to find any simple answers—if they can find them at all.

While they sign in at reception, Liz glances at her phone. There’s a message from Michael waiting to be read. She ignores it. Whatever it contains, it can only lead to disappointment: either the different batches of serum have mutilated the alien DNA in the samples and need to be scrapped, or they’re fine and Liz will have to try them on Max. Which means seeing Max.

She’s still not ready for that. She may never be ready.

Maybe Michael can give him the serum? They don’t need Liz there for that part. 

Maria knows her way through the facility, which is split into two wings standing at right angles to each other, facing a sunny courtyard with a fountain. “Mom’s in the wing with the dementia patients. It’s more secure, so they can’t wander off. The other wing is for people who have their mental faculties but who can’t take care of themselves physically.”

They reach the double doors into the secure wing as somebody comes back in from the courtyard, a familiar figure pushing a wheelchair.

“Alex!” Liz says, surprised to see him here. Alex glances at them, his own surprise quickly smoothed over and hidden away. And then the reason for his presence becomes clear when she looks down at who sits in the chair, gazing up at her with clear eyes very much like her son’s. “Mrs Manes—I haven’t seen you in years.”

Liz wishes she could say the years have been kind to Ana Manes, but they haven’t. The last time Liz had seen her, Liz had been perhaps eight or nine. Mrs Manes had seemed tall then, like all adults had, with fine, straight, dark hair that fell to her waist and shone in sunlight, deep eyes that always sparkled, and rich, ocher skin that glowed. In fact, everything about her had seemed to shine one way or another to Liz, not least her ever-present jewelry, or her bright laugh.

Now her skin isn’t much lined, but it looks thin and brittle, as fragile as old parchment. Her hair has lost its luster too, prematurely shot through with thick strands of silver, and it’s pinned up on her head instead of hanging loose. Only her eyes remain the same, like they have laughter caught within them. And the jewelry—turquoise beads wrapped around her wrists, emphasizing how frail she is, how knotted her fingers appear. Only her wedding band, simple gold, remains of her rings.

Mrs Manes summons a smile and the trappings of her illness fall away, transporting Liz back a couple of decades. She squints up at Liz, trying to place her. “I think you’re old enough now to call me by real name.” She taps her fingers across the blanket in her lap. “Little Lizzie Ortecho?”

“The very same,” Liz confirms.

“And Maria,” Ana continues. “I heard your mother had moved in. I’ve been sitting with her when I get the chance.”

Maria looks unexpectedly stricken, blinking at Ana like she might cry if she does anything else. “Thank you. I appreciate that.”

There’s a moment of Alex and Maria looking at each other. Liz doesn’t know when the last time they saw each other was—but there’s lingering weirdness because of their shared interest in Michael. What each other knows is also unclear, but Maria gives an awkward smile in Alex’s direction. Alex returns the smile after a beat, and it’s tight but not insincere.

“Does she remember you?” Maria asks Ana quietly.

“Yes, but she keeps asking me what happened. She doesn’t remember me getting ill.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing? It’s not your fault. It’s not even hers. And I like her company better than some of the old farts I deal with now—at least she remembers the shit we got up to as teenagers.”

That brings a smile to Maria’s lips.

“We were just heading in to see her,” Liz says.

Ana nods, and her next smile takes a lot of effort. “I’d love to come with you, but Alex was taking me back to my room.” She seems weary, like even this brief conversation has taken plenty out of her.

“Of course,” Maria says. “But now I know you’re here, I’ll come see you whenever I visit, okay?”

“I’d like that. It’s lovely seeing my boys, but all they ever talk about is work, and I never much cared for military talk.”

Alex wheels his mother away, leaving Liz and Maria facing the double doors into Mimi’s ward.

“Let’s get this over with,” Maria mutters, one hand on the door handle. Liz holds her entry pass to the scanner beside the door and Maria takes a deep breath. “I’m ready as I’ll ever be.”

The real purpose of their visit is to get blood and saliva samples from Mimi. Given that she’s bright and welcoming when they enter her room, and she doesn’t question Liz’s intentions, it’s easily done, but it’s also strange how disconcerting the experience is for Liz for Mimi to look at her and not recognize her. It’s like missing a step in the dark, every time Mimi glances around and asks what her name is again, and Liz knows how difficult it is for Maria by the way she’s cutting crescents into her palms with her nails.

They don’t hang around long. When they retreat to the corridor, Alex is waiting.

“Mom’s asleep,” he says. “She does that more than anything else these days.”

“I didn’t know she was here,” Liz says. “I thought she was in a facility further north?”

“She was,” Alex confirms, “but when dad was stationed back in Roswell, here she came. He doesn’t like to be too far from her. Even if actually taking care of her is too much of a burden.”

Once upon a time, Liz might have said that was unfair. His dad had been left with four sons to raise when Ana got ill, and he had to work to afford her care fees. His wasn’t the kind of job that made it easy to look after his wife, especially not if he was gone for long periods. But Liz has come to realize that no matter how much Jesse Manes may love his wife, he’d see being a carer as a feminine role. Not for him.

“Got to fit my trips in around his visits,” Alex continues. “Gets a little awkward if we’re both in there and we have to play happy families in front of mom.” He glances down at his crutch. “Wouldn’t want to upset her. I managed it for years when I was a kid, but I don’t have the energy to lie to her anymore, not even by omission.”

“I’m sorry,” Maria says.

“Why are you apologizing? It’s not your fault.” His smile is warmer. “Did you mean it about visiting her? I think she’d appreciate someone with more to talk about than ammunition and engines.”

“Of course. I’d love to.”

They amble down the corridor and out into the parking lot, Liz’s mind automatically shifting to what kind of tests she’ll do on the samples she has. The next step is digging into records—which could be spread far and wide, and that kind of research was never Liz’s forte. They need someone who’s good at querying databases and government records.

The ideal candidate is climbing into his car.

Liz  jogs across the lot to knock on his window. Alex rolls it down and raises an eyebrow at her. 

“Do you think you could dig up some records for us?” she asks. Maria sends her a questioning look. “Or know somebody who’s good with that kind of thing. We’re trying to figure out what’s wrong with Mimi and a little family history might help.”

“I may know a guy.” He considers this further, looking between them shrewdly. “Do you think her illness is of an  _ earthly _ origin? Is that what you’re looking for?”

“I’ll bring you up to speed later,” Liz promises, “but the more time I spend in Roswell, the more I realize everything is connected to  _ un- _ earthly stuff.”

“Yeah.” He sighs, and she’s not sure what prompted that, but she feels an answering weariness in her bones. “Me too.”

* * *

Max finds himself pacing before Liz’s arrival. He’s been eager to test her new serum ever since Michael messaged to tell him it was safe yesterday, but he’s had to wait for her to be available. That involved making it through an entire day at work, in his own cruiser this time.

He definitely hadn’t tried putting the cruiser lights on just to see if it would trigger another vision.

He’s anxious too. Skillful scheduling has meant he’s avoiding seeing Liz since she agreed to help, and she’s only coming over now because she and Kyle agree that use of a new serum needs monitoring. Max trusts her—he would even if Michael hadn’t seen the results of the serum on his own cells—and knows she wouldn’t be voluntarily coming here if she didn’t fear a repeat of Isobel’s situation. Not after Liz put all that effort into bringing Max back from the dead.

He hears her car engine minutes before he sees it, a consequence of living so far out. Then he busies himself with making a pot of tea so it looks like he wasn’t waiting for her, even though he was and there’s no shame in that. He’s still unsure how to act around her after such a seismic shift in their relationship.

When she knocks on the door he waves through the window for her to let herself in. She does, laden down with a holdall and ECG machine. 

This feels familiar.

She drops the bag on the floor. “Is Michael not here?” she asks, glancing around at the obviously empty space.

“No, he’s driving to Nevada.”

“Nevada?”

 “It’s to pick up something he spotted on the dark web—whatever that is—that he swears looks like it came from our ship.”

“He’s looking for pieces,” Liz comments. She knows what Michael was trying to do in his bunker—has to by now, given how much time she’d spent working in the space. “Of course. He still wants to get off the planet.” 

She begins fumbling in her bag instead of continuing the thought process, avoiding his eyes even though he knows what she’s wondering.

“He still refuses to see it as home,” Max confirms. “Not now his mom is gone. If he has family, he thinks it’s out there.”

“And you?” She finally voices the question.

“My family is here. I’ve always thought that. Even if Michael and Isobel are all that remains of it, that’s good enough for me, but given what I’m remembering now—I think we all came to Earth anyway. There’s nobody left out there. This is the only home I need.”

Liz nods and smiles tightly, laying out a series of syringes on the coffee table. Max isn’t sure whether that was the answer she wanted to hear or not. 

“You’re not wearing red lipstick,” he hears himself saying, the thought slipping out before it’s actually been processed by his brain.

“What?” Liz freezes, and he can see her shutters coming down.

It’s only after he’s said it that he even realises he was expecting her to wear red: across her lips, in her clothing, somewhere. Liz always wore red in some form or other when she was facing a challenge,  _ especially _ an emotional challenge. He doesn’t know where he picked that up and started equating the two things, but somewhere along the way he did.

It’s unsettling how innately he still understands her despite...well.

“Sorry.” He takes a step back, shoving his hands into his pockets. “That was—I’m an idiot. I guess I expected you to have…I’m going to shut up now.”

Visible armor or not, her barriers are firmly in place now: shoulders squared, game face on. Only a flash of hurt and confusion when she glances at him leaks through. 

It’s a mirror to his own confusion, because despite her expression, he’s very aware of how pretty she is as she looks up at him through her eyelashes. Not pretty—stunning. Beautiful. And he doesn’t know what to do with this. 

She looks away first, busying herself with the serum and wires from the machinery. It leaves him only with his thoughts for company, and they’re more confused than ever. He expected that any interest in Liz would die with his emotional connection to her, and instead he’s still feeling a pull towards her; even if that pull is more hormonally driven than it used to be.

He won’t act on it. He knows that isn’t fair.

Maybe he just needs to find a way of getting it out of his system. 

Liz clears her throat. “Shirt.” 

They’ve been here before, but this time the tension in play is entirely different. The movement of her hands is precise, almost stiff, as stiff as the way she’s holding her body when she gets close to him. She applies the pads, eyes averted the entire time, and switches the machine on while she readies the syringe.

“Arm, please.” Her voice is softer with this command, and he obeys once again, gritting his teeth at the sting of the needle. The serum is cold as it penetrates his bloodstream, but he’s had worse, and when Liz is finished she’s already taking a blood swab from the wound. 

“I need to observe your cells as well as your vital signs,” she says, still focusing on her science: smearing blood onto a microscope slide. “Really I’d hoped I could leave this with Michael in case you deteriorated after a few hours, but if he’s not here—”

“How long?” he asks.

“Isobel’s cells showed signs of deterioration within three hours, so…”

“You can stay,” Max offers. “There’s no point you driving to town and back. I’d offer to monitor myself, but I have no idea what I’m looking at.”

“I guess not.” She chews on her lip for a moment, then starts gathering up her microscope. “I can wait in Rosa’s room, out of your way.”

“Liz.” He reaches out, taking the microscope from her to set it back down on his desk. “You’re not an inconvenience. You’re the one doing me the favor, remember?”

She shakes her head at him. “You don’t understand. Being around you—” She puts the desk between them and at the last moment her courage fails, breaking eye contact. “Being close to you feels like you’re doing me the favor. Like your time is something I’m not entitled to anymore.”

“Liz, that’s not—”

“I know, it’s not rational. Believe me, I’ve had this conversation with myself. But you’ve got no reason to be around me anymore, except for this. I have to be grateful for what I get.”

“I’m sorry.” He means it. 

“Don’t apologize. If I'd known I was giving up your love for me to bring you back, I still would have done it. Without hesitation.”

It’s a heavy confession to make, and he feels it as it settles around him. It demands something in return, so he doesn’t feel overburdened with truths.

“Then you should know,” he replies, “that when I healed Rosa, some part of me knew it was going to kill me. I didn’t even think about whether you could bring me back—it didn’t matter. I had to fix what we did.”

He sees her swallow away the emotion that’s gathering. She rewards him with eye contact. “That’s ludicrous. You didn’t kill Rosa.”

“I spent a decade with her blood on my hands. The guilt I’d been carrying all that time had nothing to do with logic. It was me putting something right because I knew I could. What’s the point of having these abilities if I don’t use them?” He’s flexing his fingers and shoves them into his pockets when he realizes what he’s doing. “Even if I thought you’d never love me back, I’d still have done it. For you.”

“I guess that makes both of us idiots.” She’s smiling, even if tears are beading on her eyelashes. She glances away once more, and he gives her the quiet opportunity to steady herself.

She busies herself with the readings on the ECG output and he decides to settle on the couch while she works. “Me, maybe. You? Never. I mean, you carried me through four years of lab and made it look effortless.”

“It was.” Her tone is teasing when she replies. “Science makes complete sense. People are messy, but science isn’t. Even if something looks like magic—like the stuff you do—there’s a way of understanding it. There’s an explanation for it.”

He ponders that for a moment. “Do you ever think how much of a coincidence it is that in the vastness of the universe, I ended up here in Roswell at the same time as you—a human being capable of figuring out how my powers work?”

“You  _ know  _ I don’t believe in fate.”

“Don’t you?”

She scoffs, peering down through the microscope. “I’m not the only human who can do what I do. I just so happen to be on your side.”

“That’s what I mean.” It’s something he’s never considered before but now the idea has occurred to him, it seems important. “Why did you even end up following the path you took? You’re a natural scientist, but biomedical engineer? It’s so specific.”

She’s frowning at him, eyebrows knitted together dubiously. “My  _ abuela _ ,” she says. “Her and Mrs Manes. I never saw either of them after they got ill, I only heard what was happening to them, whispers I wasn’t supposed to hear, but it terrified me. Then my mom got ill and I thought she had what my  _ abuela _ had.” She shakes her head. “Turns out it was alcohol but by the time I figured that out, I’d decided I needed to find a cure.”

He’d thought he’d known Liz. For all the time they’d spent together as children, as teenagers, he’d convinced himself that nobody knew her better than he did. God, he’d been clueless.

“You wanted to heal people,” he says. “Well, you brought me back so I think you’ve made a success of that.”

“That wasn’t science. That was luck. I had no idea what I was doing.”

“It still worked.”

“Not in a way I can replicate or write a paper about.”

“You sure? When Michael gets back I could—” He mimes frying Michael with his hands.

For the first time, she laughs, soft and low. “That’s hardly ethical. Besides, I know the only time you lay hands on him is to heal him.” And the way she’s looking at him makes it clear that maybe she always knew him better than he knew her. “He’s the reason you even can.”

He sucks in a breath to steady himself before answering. “Who told you?”

“Isobel told me about your family dog, but I’ve had time to mull it over since then. I’ve heard plenty of Michael’s casual comments about the stuff he went through when he was in foster care, enough to know you must have been aware of it at the time. You learned to kill to protect Isobel, but you learned to heal for him, didn’t you?”

Her voice is so soft, it creeps across his skin like moths’ wings, and gets under it too. She’s right: he’d been desperate for a way to protect Michael, to help him, and Buck had been the perfect opportunity to practice. If the dog had died, well, he was going to die anyway, and if it worked—

It had worked, and then Max had been able to go to Michael with his newfound ability and help him the only way he knew how.

“Noah said I’m an aberration,” he replies, and feels his mouth twisting at the thought. “That’s why I feel ill when I do it.”

“But you choose to do it anyway, and that’s what counts.”

The way she looks at him then—he wants to be able to love her back. He wants to be able to reward her faith. The universe seems to be arranged to bring them together and yet there’s only a space where his love for her ought to be, even as he still feels a pull towards her.

Just because he doesn’t love her now, doesn’t mean he can’t. Or if he can’t, it doesn’t mean they can’t be around each other, that they can’t mean something to each other.

All it takes is laying a new foundation.

“Look at what we have in common,” he says. “Healing people. Being idiots. Even if you refuse to believe in fate, this could be the start of a solid friendship.”

It’s the wrong thing to say. Liz’s smile vanishes and in the moment before her face becomes an implacable mask, he gets another glimpse of that well of pain she’s trying to cover up, a split second of stricken vulnerability.

“No. I don’t think that’s a good idea at all.”

“Liz—” But whatever he was going to say, whatever words he was going to use to try and make this better but inevitably make this worse, is interrupted by the opening of the patio door.

Rosa steps through, and the conversation is over.

* * *

Liz has definitely been more thankful to see her sister—finding her outside a cave several weeks ago takes the top spot and forever will—but this ranks up there. She crosses the room to escape her conversation with Max, only to come up short before she reaches Rosa. A relaxed Rosa, pupils blown and smile a little too easy.

“Where have you been?” she asks, realizing nobody had driven up to Max’s house to drop Rosa off.

Liz doesn’t know if Max can smell  _ it _ , but she definitely can.

“I went for a walk,” Rosa replies. “I didn’t realize you were coming over.”

“Apparently.”

Max is staring at them in confusion, so Liz takes Rosa by the hand and steers her towards her room. “C’mon, let’s relax a little,” she says, trying to feign nonchalance. “I’ve got to stay here to keep an eye on Max’s DNA for a while.”

Rosa glances at the couch and smirks. “Hey there, Deputy Evans. Have you been playing doctors and nurses?”

Max immediately begins buttoning his shirt up, but the questioning look he gives Rosa means the jig is up. “Is she—?” he asks Liz.

“Yeah, I think so.” The odor of weed is pretty hard to ignore this close up.

Rosa is already rummaging in the kitchen cabinets. “I’m just going to get a snack and then we can binge some  _ Queer Eye _ .”

Two sharing bags of Doritos and one sinking feeling in the pit of Liz’s stomach later, they’re curled up on Rosa’s bed. Liz has no idea how to start this conversation, even though she’s feared having to start it ever since Rosa came back. She’s read so much about addiction since then and she knows a relapse isn’t the end of the world, but she also doesn’t know how Rosa will react. Their relationship—this fractured inversion, the question of who is the big sister and who is the younger—is still reforming and Liz doesn’t know if she can take charge of the situation without Rosa rebelling.

“Rosa,” she says tentatively, “have you been smoking?”

Rosa shrugs. “It was only a little weed to help me relax. Things have been kind of tense around here and it was getting to me.” She holds her index finger up to her lips in a “ssssh” motion. “Don’t tell Maria, I stole it from her jacket.”

Liz tucks that away to tell Maria about later. “You know you can’t smoke that here.” She’s pleased with her tone: she’s not nagging, she’s not accusing. It’s even and gentle.

“Yeah, that’s why I went for a walk.”

“But being out in the desert alone while you’re stoned—”

“I didn’t go far. Barely out of sight of the house.”

Liz licks her lips and tries again. “You know, if you’re struggling, you can talk to me. Or to Kyle. We might not know what you’re going through but we’re here for you.”

“I know. I just needed something to take the edge off, you know?”

There’s no point talking about this any further while Rosa’s still high; better to wait until tomorrow. It would be easier if rehab was an option for Rosa, but short of locking her up in Alex’s bunker—a harsh overreaction to one joint—all they can do is support her.

Rosa was already slipping before she died, and everything Liz has read suggests that’s normal. Hardly anybody gets clean and stays clean forever. She doesn’t want Rosa feeling like a failure, not when she’s dealing with more emotionally than anybody else might be expected to deal with without a stiff drink.

Sheriff—Jim—Valenti was helping her before she died. He’d seen the signs of her hard won sobriety crumbling. What had his plan been, sending her to Los Alamos? Who, or what, had waited for Rosa there?

Rosa falls asleep on Liz’s shoulder and it gives her the opportunity to text Kyle. He’s taken on so much with his new sister already, and Liz feels a fresh pang of guilt for burdening him with this instead of dealing with it herself. But he needs to know what’s going on, in case things spiral.

_ Rosa got high tonight. Hopefully a one off. _

_ Your dad bought her a bus ticket to Los Alamos. Can you find out why? _

It’s vague enough she expects Kyle to come back to her with more questions, but other than handing the ticket over she doesn’t know what else to tell him. He may have to ask his mother, and that’s delicate, but what if there’s a solution out there for helping Rosa fight her demons, they just don’t know about it?

Liz’s watch bleeps to tell her to check on Max’s cells. She slips out of the bed and pads into the living room, which is quiet and dark. There’s no sign of Max, not until she glances out through the patio doors to find a deputy-shaped shadow in a chair next to the lit fire pit.

It means she can check his DNA in peace, and she heaves a sigh of relief when her glance through the microscope reveals all is fine. She’s tempted to scribble him a note giving him the all clear and sneak out, but that’s the coward’s choice, especially given she’ll have to come back to administer more serum in the future.

Instead, she slides open the patio door, though she doesn’t cross the threshold, hanging back to speak to him from across the terrace.

“You’re safe,” she says. “For now.”

When he turns to face her, the breath is knocked from her. In the firelight, he looks… _ alien _ . Lit up in flickers of yellow and orange, his normally deep eyes reflecting the fire so they appear ablaze themselves. Even his skin seems to soak up the colors and cast them back around him into the shadows. Liz remembers what Isobel had told her about the night he killed Noah, about him absorbing the power of the lightning and practically  _ crackling _ with it in the hours afterwards. There’s a hint of that power now, even if it’s only her imagination, and it makes her shiver.

It’s not a shiver of fear.

“Thank you,” he says quietly. His demeanor doesn’t reflect the wild energy she was imagining him to be dressed in.

“No problem.” That should be the end of it. She shouldn’t have any curiosity in the path that new memories might take him down, not when she won’t be walking that path beside him. And yet. “Anything?”

He shakes his head. “Isobel thinks I have to wait for a trigger.” He spreads his hands. “I just don’t know what I’m waiting for.”

“If I’m any good—and I think I am—you shouldn’t have to wait long.”

That raises a smile from him. “Thank you. And I’m—”

“If you’re about to apologize again, I’m going to shove you into that fire pit. You have nothing left to apologize for. Whether it’s fate or bad luck, it is what it is. Not your fault or mine.”

“Then why do I feel like the wrong thing will send you running for cover.” He’s shifted further towards her and his eyes are darkness again, the only light in them now reflecting from the stars above. She wonders if the firelight is reflecting off of her, and what she looks like to him. Is it like Rosa standing here, or Jenna? 

Best not to hitch a ride on that train of thought.

“Because it will,” she says. “I can’t help that, it’s who I am.”

“We could be friends,” he suggests again.

“No, we couldn’t. Whatever we are supposed to be to each other, it was never friends. So I’m going to finish helping you out with this problem, and then I’m going to put as much distance between us as I can.”

He rises from the chair, and keeps rising, up and up, so much of him in the darkness. She always forgets how tall he is until she sees him again. In her mind, even now, he is  _ safe _ , and for some reason that means he’s always slightly diminished, as if there being so much of him doesn’t equate to safety. And yet being near him, all that height, all that muscle doesn’t make her scared at all. Not of what he’s capable of, at least—only what he makes her feel.

Perhaps that’s why his next words to her feel so ominous, even though they are soft and tentative. 

“Once you told me that if you ran, I should chase you.”

She can’t breathe. He remembers everything she said to him. He remembers it, and he feels none of it. How is that fair? She’d offered him that challenge in the knowledge that he  _ was _ safety, and if he chased her, she wanted to be caught. But can she rely on him anymore? And why should she hold him to that when everything has changed?

No, it’s time to cut him loose.

“Now I’m telling you not to. If I run this time, you need to let me go.”

**Author's Note:**

> In a lot of ways this chapter doesn't have a huge amount of plot (definitely not compared to a season opener in a TV series) and is just following the threads through from the season finale. From here on out, it gets plottier.


End file.
